Preferably in a very public way.
I don’t give a damn what they think about me.
But failure for me would mean failure for Maggie and the others.
He glanced around.
So far as I know no one in here has knives out for me, he thought, turning to the big wall.
He scanned the banks of monitors. There were four prominent images of females, each with her name in white letters on a red bar across the top. The one he recognized immediately was that of Maggie McCain. It was a very attractive shot of her, fashionably dressed for a children’s charity fund-raiser, standing on the wide steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
From their files that Kerry Rapier had e-mailed him that morning, Payne also recognized the others. The name bars above them identified them as Krystal Gonzalez, Emily Quan, and Jocelyn Spencer. Each had a box at the bottom that listed her height, weight, date of birth, last known address, aliases (all had “none”), and police file number.
The Gonzalez girl’s photograph was a self-portrait. It came from her Mary’s House file and showed her, at age seventeen, standing in front of a bathroom mirror holding a small digital camera. She wore snug shorts, a very tight New York Yankees three-quarter-sleeve shirt, and she was flashing a radiant smile.
The image of the twenty-six-year-old Quan was of her sitting at an office desk, her straight black hair framing her thin ivory face and doe eyes and falling to the black cardigan sweater she wore over a white T-shirt.
The tall, somber-faced Spencer, who was twenty-seven, had been photographed on a city neighborhood sidewalk. She wore blue jeans and a red Temple University sweatshirt. A gold sequined purse, hanging from her shoulder by a thin chain of gold links, glinted in the sunlight.
The other monitors displayed a wide variety of information from the files that were being updated constantly—Matt saw the forensics report on the Molotov cocktail stating that the fingerprint analysis ultimately had failed—to crime-scene photographs of Maggie McCain’s burned home, to exterior shots of Mary’s House and the West Philadelphia Sanctuary, and more.
Payne felt a massive hand on his shoulder, then behind him Lieutenant Jason Washington’s deep voice said, “Glad you made it back safely, Matthew.”
Payne turned and held out his right hand.
“Thanks, Jason.” He nodded toward the high wall of monitors. “So we’re working all four cases as one.”
“With the CPS thread, it’s clear that the disappearances are connected. They have to be. We just haven’t yet turned over the rock beneath the rock that has the link from them to the miscreant.”
“Or miscreants plural?”
Washington nodded. “My instinct tells me that solving one will lead to solving them all. Worst case: If I’m wrong, at least we’ve solved one. Which is more th
an has been accomplished thus far.”
Matt looked back at the banks of monitors.
“Let’s hope we find the others alive,” he said.
“Did you see the e-mail from this morning that Maggie sent her family?” Washington said.
“The one by way of India? Yeah, I did. And, taking a shot in the dark, I sent her one saying she has to communicate with us. At least send some proof of life.”
Washington nodded. “And?”
“And so far nothing but absolute silence.”
“Well, it certainly was not a wasted effort. You know what Franklin said, ‘One catches more fish with more hooks in the water.’ Or perhaps it was my father who said that.”
Payne chuckled, then said, “I see the fingerprints failed. Anything else come up?”
“A couple items of note,” Washington said. “One, Mickey O’Hara was the first in the media to figure out it was Maggie’s house that had been hit.”
“He told me last night. The connection goes back to when she contacted him about his series of articles that triggered reforms in Child Protective Services. Mick likes Maggie. He wants to help.”
“I know. After you called and talked to Tony, I talked with Mickey about that. Because he likes Maggie, and also has a deep appreciation for what she does at Mary’s House, I got him to agree to embargo her name.” He paused, then added, “That all changed when Maggie’s father called today and said he wants his daughter’s face in every newspaper and on every newscast. Said if we didn’t make the call, he would. Carlucci failed to dissuade him. So, for giving us a little time by not releasing Maggie’s name, I gave Mickey the murdered girl’s name and the promise of another scoop. He just broke the story on Maggie and the girl.”
Washington stepped over to an unattended laptop, opened it, and pulled up CrimeFreePhilly.com.