3:46 P.M.
Chris Cavanaugh shook his head. “I don’t understand.” “Start from the beginning,” Lucas instructed her. She kept her voice steady and strong. “You mean when Mark
Ludlow died? Or when you, Bobby, and Jessica met in art therapy at the prison in Atlanta?”
“Talk quieter, unless you want me to have to dispose of those three guards as well. There’s no air ducts in this outer wall anyway, so you don’t have to be clear for the microphones.”
“How do you know about that?” Cavanaugh demanded. “I studied under an expert. Your book was quite popular at the prison library, by the way-you should let your publicist know.” “Let’s go,” Jessica Ludlow repeated. “In a minute. Go on, Theresa.” “Jessica’s an artist.” Lucas reached one hand toward the young mother, then stopped as he remembered the cameras. But their eyes met, and she smiled, for the first time all day. “She’s a fantastic artist. Do you see any of her stuff hanging in her house? No. Ludlow didn’t appreciate it, and besides, it was his house.”
Theresa shifted, drawing her knees toward her chest. “Yeah, he wouldn’t even put her name on the deed. So you two met when Jessica worked in art therapy at the Atlanta jail, and you fell in love. But Mark Ludlow got wind of it and asked for a transfer, just as you were about to be released?” She made the last sentence into a question, but Lucas nodded. “You followed her here. I’m guessing that’s where things went bad.”
He said, “All we wanted was a divorce, and custody.”
Jessica spoke up, quietly. “I would even have considered joint custody. But Mark said no way. He said no court would allow even visitation to someone on felony parole, and I figured he was probably right.”
“We had no choice,” Lucas said to Theresa. “You’re a mother. You must understand.”
“So you killed him.”
“We argued. Bobby hit him with the gun, just kept hitting. I told you he had poor impulse control.”
“Convenient,” Theresa said. “But I don’t think so. You have a cast-off pattern of bloodstains traveling up your pant leg.”
“So I killed him.”
“You couldn’t be swinging an object and get a neat pattern like that on yourself at the same time. You were standing perpendicular to the swinging weapon, at a slight distance.”
“So it was Bobby. Like I said.”
“Bobby is wearing khakis, light enough to see any bloodstains present. There aren’t any”-her eye fell on his bloodstained corpse-“or weren’t. It’s possible that for some reason he had time to change his pants and you didn’t, but I doubt it. Neither of you has spare clothes in the car. But Jessica had a closet upstairs, and besides, she probably ruined the pants she wore with the bleach she used to clean up the kitchen.” She turned to the girl. “You probably didn’t plan this, but even though I found the damp mop, I didn’t think the floor had been recently cleaned, because Lucas left a coating of sand particles from the floor mats in the car, just as he’s done on the marble tile here.”
Jessica merely shifted her baby in her arms, her smooth face as innocent as ever.
“You now had a problem,” Theresa went on. “You and Bobby dragged the body outside and planned for Jessica to go to work as if nothing had happened, but you knew she’d be the obvious suspect. You had to run off together, but in such a way that Jessica would appear to be innocent. She and Ethan would have been kidnapped by a violent bank robber and presumed dead. No one in Cleveland had any knowledge of your affair, unless Mark confided in a new friend.”
“Tell everyone he’d been cuckolded?” Jessica snorted. “He wasn’t the talkative type.”
“There it is again-you speak of him in the past tense. You said your husband ‘didn’t’ eat with you, not ‘doesn’t’ eat with you, when you weren’t supposed to know he was dead.”
Jessica glared at her. Lucas frowned.
Theresa kept talking. Any delay would give Frank and the other cops time to figure out what to do. “He wasn’t the talkative type, but you are. You told me so yourself. That’s the real reason Cherise is dead, isn’t it? You told her about Lucas.”
She and Lucas exchanged a glance, hers abashed, his merely sad.
“You didn’t kill Paul, a cop. You tried to keep your murders to a minimum, but Cherise had to go. The only way this could work is if no one had any idea you two were lovers. Jessica disappeared with a ruthless felon, never to be seen again. A tragedy, but forgotten in a week or two. However, cops-and the public-hate being duped. If they figured it out, you’d be on the evening news from coast to coast.”
“But now you know,” Lucas pointed out, and the fact that he seemed more sad than angry scared her to death. “And Chris here, who didn’t have a clue, as I can see from the expression on his face.”
“I asked you to leave him out of it.”
“What I said goes. They’ll never strafe that car if he’s in it. You, I’m not so sure about-chivalry died a long time ago.” He stood up. “Jessie, take the tie-wraps out of the side pocket there and loop their feet together. Just one ankle. Make sure it’s tight.”
He stood back, holding the automatic pistol. On the monitor it would seem as if Jessica followed his commands out of fear. She slid the sleeping Ethan to the floor, gently propping his head on her purse.
“That’s the real reason for the cough medicine, isn’t it?” Theresa asked her. “To keep him quiet and still during your getaway. He’s really out-I hope you didn’t give him too much.”
“You think I drugged my own baby?” Jessica kept her voice down, too low for the microphones in the ducts to pick up, and yet she hadn’t sounded that angry when accused of her husband’s brutal murder.
“I think he hasn’t coughed or even sniffled once all afternoon. You stained his nose with the fruit juice to make him look as if he had a cold so that the day-care lady would tell you he couldn’t stay there. You came with a convenient supply of snacks for him, since you knew she wouldn’t be giving him lunch.”
Jessica placed one plastic tie around Theresa’s right ankle and one around Cavanaugh’s left, then connected the two with a third. She pulled them tight enough to cut off the blood supply. “This whole thing has been for him,” she declared.
“The same thing on their wrists,” Lucas told his girlfriend.
Theresa protested. “No. It hurts.”
Jessica slid the strap over Theresa’s right hand without hesitation. Theresa held it in place so that it tightened around the bones, to keep it from rubbing the already damaged area. The hand might go numb, but it was the best she could do.
Over at the reception desk, the phone began to ring. Lucas ignored it, as she expected him to. He could not risk crossing that open area where the snipers could sight him through the clear window.
Cavanaugh asked, “What’s the purpose of this, Lucas?”
“Here’s the plan: Jessie, put Ethan in the rear driver’s-side seat. You’ll have to drive.”
“But I’ve never even been in that car!”
“Just press the gas and steer. It’s an automatic, and we don’t have much choice. I’ll go out behind you two. The snipers are all on the other side of the street, right, Chris?” When the negotiator didn’t answer, Lucas slung the rifle over one shoulder and pulled a handgun from the back of his waistband, pointing it at Cavanaugh’s head. Then he repeated the question.
“I don’t know! They don’t tell me where the snipers are! It’s too easy for me to slip and give something away.”
Lucas considered this. “That’s true, I remember reading that. I’m not worried about the ones on the library anyway. The car will block me,” he added to Jessica. “Any on the roof of this building will have to aim straight down, and the awning will block their view up until the last second.” He swung the gun’s barrel toward Theresa and Cavanaugh. “You two will get into the rear passenger’s-side seat. I’ll ride shotgun, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
Theresa formed a picture in her mind, and not a pretty one. She figured that the cops could handle a vertical shot, desperate at this last chance to stop Lucas-and he intended to stay plastered to her back once again. All of a sudden, she wanted to vomit.
“On your feet,” he ordered. “Jessie, pick up Ethan. Get ready to run. Move fast, but don’t panic-they won’t shoot at you. Here’s the keys. Get in, start the car, and drive. Don’t worry about me- I’ll be inside.”
Theresa and Cavanaugh got to their feet, gingerly, trying to coordinate their movements. They managed not to fall, but three-legged-race walking required their full attention. She twined a few of her fingers around his. He smiled and gave them a squeeze, but she hadn’t done it as a show of moral support. “Try not to yank on my wrist.”
“Sure.” The smile disappeared.
She felt a twinge of guilt. “I’ll try not to bump your chest.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be an option. There can’t be a lot of room in that backseat, not with those two duffels in the middle.”
“Shut up.” Lucas half crouched behind them, holding on to the back of Cavanaugh’s shirt with one hand and poking the handgun into Theresa’s spine with the other. He kept his head below the level of their shoulders. “Go, Jessie.”
Clutching her son, she ran out and around the front of the Mer-cedes. Lucas pushed, and Theresa and Cavanaugh made for the passenger side in their stumbling gait. He opened the door and slid in. Lucas separated from them, jumped into the passenger seat, and faced them before Theresa could pull in her arms and legs. The barrel of the weapon appeared beside the headrest. He had only to hold down the trigger and she and Cavanaugh became hamburger.
She hoped Rachael was not watching.
“Get in,” he said. “Shut the door or I’ll shoot you both.”
She heard a loud plunk, and something struck her calf. Two divots appeared in the pavement outside. She heard more toward the front of the car and retracted her body without thinking. There had been snipers on their side of the street, and she hoped that bullets would not penetrate the top of the car. Cavanaugh yanked the door shut, and then they were moving, with her butt on his thighs and the top of her head rubbing the upholstered roof. She remembered to breathe just as they approached the intersection of Rockwell and Sixth.