Rusty Mullins, Sidney Levine, and Robert Sullivan sat crammed together in the Arlington police station. Mullins and the reporter shared the adjacent desk of Sullivan’s absent partner. The detective connected an extra phone and the three men went to work like telemarketers in a boiler room.
Most of the motel desk clerks had been on duty only a few hours. Each was pressed to check the previous night for late registrations between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., the potential arrival window matching Asu’s likely departure from Miami. If the question generated a hit, they would ask for a description of the guests and their vehicle. They wouldn’t request names. If a lead looked promising, Mullins or Sidney would check it out in person.
Four hours later, not a single inquiry netted a positive result.
Then, after calling out for a lunch pizza delivery, Sullivan tried the Comfort Inn in Lorton, Virginia, at the southern end of Fairfax County. A woman on the front desk said a man had checked in shortly after midnight. He’d pre-booked two rooms on a credit card. Two rooms for two nights.
Sullivan stood from his desk to catch the attention of Sidney and Mullins. Instinctively, they lowered their voices, continuing their conversations while trying to listen to Sullivan’s side of his.
“Do you have a vehicle on the registration form?” Sullivan asked.
The other men turned in their chairs to face him.
“A silver Windstar,” Sullivan repeated. “A family then?”
Sullivan listened for a moment. “Was that to avoid additional charges?”
He listened again. “Sure. That makes sense. But the vehicle’s the wrong make so your guests aren’t the ones we’re looking for. Like I said, it’s a parental custody issue, nothing dangerous. Certainly nothing to be mentioned beyond you and me. Thank you for your help.”
Sullivan hung up. The other men had finished their calls and stared at him.
“So, what’s the word?” Mullins asked.
“A match on the check-in time and the van. Two rooms had been booked by two men traveling together on business.”
“Did she volunteer their names?” Mullins asked.
“No. But the rooms had to be guaranteed by credit card. There will be a name, although I bet my share of the pizza it’s phony.”
“What did you mean by additional charges?” Sidney asked.
Sullivan stepped away from the desk. He smiled. “It’s why we’re going to Lorton. The woman on the desk said one of the house-cleaning staff mentioned there were Do-Not-Disturb signs on the door handles of the two adjacent rooms. She reported she would clean the rooms later in the day. Then she said she heard a child crying in one of them, so the occupants would probably go out for lunch. I was curious if having a wife and child with you increased the room rate, a reason many parents might not register more than one person.”
“Does it?” Mullins asked.
“No. There might be other reasons, like the kid was sleeping and carried through an outside entrance closer to the rooms. But, we’ve got three matches—arrival time, van model, and a kid.”
“Good enough for me,” Mullins said. “Who are you notifying?”
“No one. We’ll be there in twenty-five minutes. I don’t want the state police and FBI converging on people who might be a family on vacation. We’ll check the van license plate and maybe get lucky with a visual confirmation.” Sullivan looked at Mullins. “I suggest you stay out of sight. If they were monitoring Luguire or Archer, you might be recognized.”
“And I suggest you not pull into the Comfort Inn driving a Crown Vic, the most marked unmarked cop car in the country.”
“They’ve seen your Prius.” Sullivan turned to Sidney. “What are you driving?”
“A Ford Escort.”
“I thought you had an Audi,” Mullins said.
“My girlfriend’s. I figured you saw my Escort when we first met at the ballgame.”
“Consider your Escort commandeered.” Sullivan pulled his pistol from the holster and checked the clip.
Mullins did the same with his Glock.
“What about me?” Sidney asked. “Got a spare gun?”
“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Sullivan said.
“Fine. Except the bad guys stopped using swords a hundred years ago.”
Sullivan’s intercom buzzed. “Rob, did you order a pizza?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right out.” He gestured for Sidney to go first. “You can’t carry a gun, but you can carry the pizza. No one ever shot himself in the foot with a pizza.”
Sidney drove, Mullins sat in the front passenger seat, and Sullivan dispensed pizza from the back. They rode in silence down I-95, not only because they were eating but also because they had nothing to say. Any thoughts about what lay ahead in Lorton would be speculation and any other topic mindless chatter.
They were near Newington at the Fairfax County Parkway cloverleaf when Sullivan’s cell rang. He dumped his pizza slice back in the box and grabbed his phone with sauce-coated fingers.
“What? Where? When?” he asked with intervals that allowed no more than a one-sentence response. Then he said, “Give me the details.”
Sidney glanced at Mullins but the veteran agent signaled the reporter to relax.
“Could be another case,” Mullins whispered, and returned to his slice of pepperoni.
Sidney repeatedly looked from the interstate to the rearview mirror. Sullivan held the phone tight against his cheek, his lips tight and eyes focused somewhere beyond the passing landscape. Sidney discerned no clues from the frozen expression.
“Okay. Thanks,” Sullivan said after three long moments of silence. “No. I won’t bother unless you want me to. I’m working something else.” He hung up without a goodbye.
“Well?” Sidney asked.
Sullivan wiped his phone on the edge of the pizza box. “That was Miami. They got a call from Lorton.”
“Damn it.” Mullins turned in his seat. “Bodies?”
“The van. State trooper found it in the parking lot of the Lorton Auto Train station. The officer checked because the train comes in from Sanford, Florida. Cars are loaded on in Sanford and can’t come off till Lorton. The vehicle would have come north without anyone seeing it.”
“Sounds like a lot of planning,” Mullins said. “Not a spontaneous action. Those car slots have to be reserved, don’t they?”
“Yes. But there are cancellations. The van had to be at the station by 2 p.m. yesterday. They could have made it from Miami to Sanford in plenty of time. The train ran late and arrived at 9:50 a.m. this morning.”
“That eliminates our Comfort Inn guests,” Sidney said.
“No,” Sullivan said. “It makes them even more plausible. There’s no record of that van being on the train.”
“So, they dumped it,” Mullins said.
“Yeah. There were food wrappers, soda cans, and a crayon wedged in the seat.”
“They’re holding up at the motel,” Mullins said. “The vehicle change is a safeguard.”
“They’d all have to be out and about, right?” Sidney asked. “Two drivers are needed to drop the van and get another vehicle.”
“They’ve probably got help in the area,” Sullivan said. “That means we don’t know how many are at the motel. They could have a lookout.”
Sidney pressed the accelerator harder. “We’re less than ten minutes out. What do you want me to do when we get there?”
“Park in front,” Sullivan said. “I’ll find the woman I spoke with. Showing up in person with my credentials will let me ask questions I couldn’t over the phone. When we’ve got rooms and a name, then we’ll have the front desk call and say maintenance needs to service the air conditioner. If someone answers, I’ll call for backup, and you guys are out of it.”
“If no one answers?” Sidney asked.
Sullivan laughed. “Then I guess I’ll find a maintenance staff uniform and see what’s wrong with the room’s air conditioning.”
“Are you worried about jurisdiction?” Mullins asked.
“To go in and fix an air conditioner? No. Are you?”
“It’s not my pension,” Mullins said.
Sullivan gave Mullins a hard stare. “But it is the little girl and her mother. You’re not the only one worried about them.”
***
“Maintenance.” Sullivan rapped on the door of 306, the first of the two adjacent rooms that had been booked on the credit card of Enrique Cortez.
The motel manager hadn’t argued with Sullivan’s credentials or his request to call the rooms to say maintenance needed access. When there had been no answer, the homicide detective slipped on a pair of coveralls, grabbed a tool box, and rode the elevator to the third floor. Sidney and Mullins were positioned to watch the motel’s front and rear exits.
Sullivan knocked again. The only sound returning was the hum of the air conditioner. Within its steady whir, a sporadic rattle rose and fell. Ironically, maintenance did need to check the unit. He inserted the electronic passkey in the lock, saw the light turn green, and slowly opened the door. “Maintenance.”
The room was empty, not just of people but of any sign of clothes, suitcases, or toilet articles. Whoever occupied the room had cleared out. They weren’t staying for the second night.
Sullivan checked the other room and found the same scene. There were fast food wrappers in the trash. He called Sidney’s mobile and told him to get Mullins and come up.
“Something spooked them.” Mullins rendered his verdict after walking through the two rooms.
“Maybe they’re just being super cautious,” Sidney said.
“No. You don’t draw attention to yourself by disappearing. Something altered their plans.”
Sidney walked to the window and looked down at the parking lot, hoping to see a silver van pull in. “I might have screwed up.”
“How?” Sullivan asked.
“I googled Asu’s name this morning. All I got were a string of state universities.”
“What did you enter?” Mullins asked.
“Just the name Asu.”
“I can’t see that raising any flags,” Sullivan said.
Mullins frowned. “What kind of firewall security do you have?”
Sidney shrugged. “The usual. Norton. McAfee. Stuff to keep out viruses and malicious cookies.”
“Hacking through that would be child’s play for someone who can manipulate the cyber-security of the Federal Reserve. The odds of someone picking up every search for Asu are long, but the odds of someone specifically monitoring your computer are much much less. Probably a certainty.”
Sidney looked alarmed. “Why?”
“If you posted speculation on a link between Luguire and Archer, that combination is specific enough to trigger someone’s tripwire. You said you got responses from a Roanoke and an alleged congressional insider. Someone else might be lurking in the cyber shadows whose response was to invade and monitor your computer.”
“So I probably scared Asu off?”
“No. It’s more likely the Miami alert to state police and the FBI was intercepted.” Mullins looked around the room. “Maybe Zaina left us a clue.”
While Sidney and Sullivan watched, Mullins walked between the two queen-sized beds. Only one was unmade. “I suspect this is the room where the mother and child slept. Someone sat in the chair and guarded them. Both beds in the other room have been used.”
Mullins bent over, grabbed the mattress near the foot of the unmade bed, and hurled it aside. A folded sheet of paper and a bag were stuffed on top of the box springs.
Mullins took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick up the paper. He shook it gently, then tugged at the corners to straighten it. It was a page from a child’s coloring book. Printed in red block letters across the uncolored drawing of a princess in a carriage were the words, “Help us! Silver Windstar.”
He set the page on the dresser. “Why don’t you take charge of that,” he told Sullivan.
Then Mullins straightened the paper bag. It was at least two-foot square and had a Toys “R” Us logo on the side. Mullins reached inside and extracted a receipt. The print was small and he walked closer to the window for stronger light. “It’s from ten-fifteen this morning. Cinderella’s Castle. Twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents. Must be something you assemble. The store location is Telegraph Road in Woodbridge, not far from here.”
“Somebody bought a present for the little girl,” Sullivan said.
“There’s also wrapping paper, Scotch tape, and a packet of bows. Total expense—thirty-six dollars and forty-seven cents paid with forty-dollars cash and three dollars and fifty-three cents returned in change.” He handed his handkerchief and the receipt to Sullivan.
Sidney studied the receipt over Sullivan’s shoulder. “So, the purchase was made before they left the motel. Either Asu or Chuchi went out alone.”
“Probably brought the gift back to quiet the kid,” Sullivan proposed.
“Then why the hell wrap it?” Mullins walked to the wastebasket by the small desk. “Do you see any paper?”
Sidney stepped next door and checked the second room. He returned a moment later. “Nothing there. Maybe they wouldn’t let her unwrap it until she was in the van.”
Sullivan looked at the large Toys “R” Us bag. “Just as easy to keep it hidden without the wrapping paper and bows. These aren’t the kind of guys who fuss over social niceties. I need to notify Miami and the Virginia state police.”
“However you want to play it,” Mullins said.
“I should stay here and hand over the evidence. You guys head on. I’ll work out a ride to Arlington.”
Sidney turned to Mullins. “Where are we going?”
“To the toy store. I’d like to get a description of the person who made the purchase.” Mullins glanced at his watch. “Not quite four hours ago. Somebody remembers something.”
***
“How can I help you?” The young cashier looked at Mullins with curiosity.
He stood without any item on the checkout counter. “Do you have Cinderella’s Castle in stock?”
“I believe so. But I sold one earlier. That might have been the last one.”
Mullins groaned. “Oh, no. I’m getting one for my granddaughter’s birthday. I hope it wasn’t someone buying her the same gift. Was it a man or a woman?”
“A man.”
Mullins looked at her name badge. “Karen, right?”
She nodded.