Read Online 18th Abduction (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: James Patterson
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vehicle?”
“No.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“I want to clear you, Mr. Tuohy. I need your prints, et cetera.”
Tuohy sighed, nodded.
Jacobi got up from the table and left the room.
CHAPTER 25
Two hours after bringing Tuohy in to Southern Station’s Homicide Division, we had his statement, a ten-card of fingerprints that matched his prints already in the system, a cheek swab, and a bite impression.
He had also submitted to Conklin taking photos of his naked arms and upper torso. His body was clean, but Tuohy wasn’t happy.
I thought he might bite
me.
I assigned a uniform to drive the motel troll home and stashed all the physical evidence we’d collected from him into the overnight pouch for the forensics lab.
There was takeout Italian dinner in a bag on Jacobi’s desk when Conklin and I went in to tell him good night.
I asked my boss and former partner, “What do you think?”
“I’m not convinced either way,” said Jacobi. “He had means and opportunity, and if he’s a psycho, opportunity could’ve been his motive. He knew the girl. She could have let him into the room. They got into something. He killed her. Butthat’s ‘what if,’ Boxer. Pure speculation. Until Washburn and Clapper weigh in, I’m not putting down any bets.”
Which meant he wasn’t going to ask the DA to get an arrest warrant, or search warrants for Tuohy’s domicile, office, and car. There was no probable cause. We were lucky to get exclusionary prints and DNA.
I nodded my agreement. Any guy walking past Carly’s door could have pushed her in and killed her. He might’ve even had a clean white shirt in his suitcase.
“You did good,” Jacobi said to me and Conklin.
It was after 9:00 p.m. when Conklin and I got into our car and headed out toward Russian Hill.
Carly Myers had been murdered. How, by whom, and why were still pieces of a mystery, and that was devastating. We weren’t quite back to square one, but we might as well have been.
Where were Susan and Adele?
No freaking clue.
Conklin and I parked on Filbert Street in front of a nice apartment building where the Myers family lived, waiting for us to bring them good or at least hopeful news.
Tragically, all we had was that Carly had been murdered in a motel frequented by prostitutes on possibly the skeeziest block in the city. We didn’t have a suspect, but to stem the grief over Carly’s death, we would promise to find her killer.
Right now that promise wouldn’t hold a drop of water.
My partner and I got out of the car and psychologically buckled up. What we had to tell Carly’s parents was going to change their lives forever.
CHAPTER 26
I’d left Joe sleeping when I headed out of our apartment before seven this morning.
Now, fifteen hours later, I was done and done in. All the lights were on in the living room when I shuffled through the front door. I dropped my keys onto the console, stowed my gun belt in the cabinet, and hugged my dog.
I called out to Joe, but he didn’t answer.
I wanted to tell him all about my day. The leads that had run us into stone walls, a killer who’d scrubbed away evidence, and maybe worst of all, parents who wanted to die rather than live without their murdered daughter.
When Jacobi gets stuck on a case, he turns it upside down, looks at it from a different person’s point of view, or from an opposite angle. I turned my case over as I unlaced my shoes.
Three women had last been seen leaving a restaurant bar after having a good time. They’d been drinking, but none of them had been stumbling drunk.
One of them had been found three days later, a day and a half postmortem, hanged from a shower head in a motel that she’d frequented in her part-time night job as a prostitute.
That was a mindblower from any angle, but I turned it over in my brain. Was Carly broke?
A drug addict?
Under someone’s thumb?
Her sometimes date, Tom Barry, had told us that Carly had a dark side. Jake
“No.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“I want to clear you, Mr. Tuohy. I need your prints, et cetera.”
Tuohy sighed, nodded.
Jacobi got up from the table and left the room.
CHAPTER 25
Two hours after bringing Tuohy in to Southern Station’s Homicide Division, we had his statement, a ten-card of fingerprints that matched his prints already in the system, a cheek swab, and a bite impression.
He had also submitted to Conklin taking photos of his naked arms and upper torso. His body was clean, but Tuohy wasn’t happy.
I thought he might bite
me.
I assigned a uniform to drive the motel troll home and stashed all the physical evidence we’d collected from him into the overnight pouch for the forensics lab.
There was takeout Italian dinner in a bag on Jacobi’s desk when Conklin and I went in to tell him good night.
I asked my boss and former partner, “What do you think?”
“I’m not convinced either way,” said Jacobi. “He had means and opportunity, and if he’s a psycho, opportunity could’ve been his motive. He knew the girl. She could have let him into the room. They got into something. He killed her. Butthat’s ‘what if,’ Boxer. Pure speculation. Until Washburn and Clapper weigh in, I’m not putting down any bets.”
Which meant he wasn’t going to ask the DA to get an arrest warrant, or search warrants for Tuohy’s domicile, office, and car. There was no probable cause. We were lucky to get exclusionary prints and DNA.
I nodded my agreement. Any guy walking past Carly’s door could have pushed her in and killed her. He might’ve even had a clean white shirt in his suitcase.
“You did good,” Jacobi said to me and Conklin.
It was after 9:00 p.m. when Conklin and I got into our car and headed out toward Russian Hill.
Carly Myers had been murdered. How, by whom, and why were still pieces of a mystery, and that was devastating. We weren’t quite back to square one, but we might as well have been.
Where were Susan and Adele?
No freaking clue.
Conklin and I parked on Filbert Street in front of a nice apartment building where the Myers family lived, waiting for us to bring them good or at least hopeful news.
Tragically, all we had was that Carly had been murdered in a motel frequented by prostitutes on possibly the skeeziest block in the city. We didn’t have a suspect, but to stem the grief over Carly’s death, we would promise to find her killer.
Right now that promise wouldn’t hold a drop of water.
My partner and I got out of the car and psychologically buckled up. What we had to tell Carly’s parents was going to change their lives forever.
CHAPTER 26
I’d left Joe sleeping when I headed out of our apartment before seven this morning.
Now, fifteen hours later, I was done and done in. All the lights were on in the living room when I shuffled through the front door. I dropped my keys onto the console, stowed my gun belt in the cabinet, and hugged my dog.
I called out to Joe, but he didn’t answer.
I wanted to tell him all about my day. The leads that had run us into stone walls, a killer who’d scrubbed away evidence, and maybe worst of all, parents who wanted to die rather than live without their murdered daughter.
When Jacobi gets stuck on a case, he turns it upside down, looks at it from a different person’s point of view, or from an opposite angle. I turned my case over as I unlaced my shoes.
Three women had last been seen leaving a restaurant bar after having a good time. They’d been drinking, but none of them had been stumbling drunk.
One of them had been found three days later, a day and a half postmortem, hanged from a shower head in a motel that she’d frequented in her part-time night job as a prostitute.
That was a mindblower from any angle, but I turned it over in my brain. Was Carly broke?
A drug addict?
Under someone’s thumb?
Her sometimes date, Tom Barry, had told us that Carly had a dark side. Jake
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