A Perfect Grave Part 39

"Help me, Rhonda," Germain chuckled to himself after ringing the doorbell, wondering if he'd be lucky enough to have all twenty-five of his deliveries be home. Could be a record-setting day.

He rang the bell again. As time ticked by in silence, his hope faded.

"Figures."

He reached for his pad to leave the message that he'd return later. His pen was poised when he was stopped by a noise from inside. What the heck was that? Sounded like a cry. He banged on the door.

"h.e.l.lo!"

He tried the handle, surprised to find it was unlocked.

"Anybody home? You have a delivery! h.e.l.lo!"

He heard another sound like a woman's m.u.f.fled groan. He entered, calling as he moved farther into the house, scanning it for a clue, hoping that he wasn't going to come upon a love session, like his buddy did.

Getting down in Tacoma.

Germain stopped in his tracks.

First hair, then a forehead and a woman's face, her mouth covered with tape. She was on the floor, on her back, taped to a chair, moaning, rolling her head.

Germain rushed to her side, pulled the tape from her mouth.

"Please, he's got my son!"

Her face was bruised. He checked for more signs of injury.

"Who?" Germain glanced around. "Ma'am, are you hurt anywhere else?"

He pulled out his keys, extracted the blade of his pocketknife, and sliced at the tape, freeing her and helping her sit more comfortably.

"Ma'am, I don't know what happened but I think I should call an ambulance."

"No!"

"Ma'am, I think you need help."

"My son! He took my son! Don't call the police! He'll kill him! Oh G.o.d!"

"Who? Ma'am we have to call some-"

The phone rang, jerking Rhonda to her feet. She trailed tape as she scrambled, grabbing the phone before the second ring could sound.

"Mom!"

"Brady! Oh, honey are you all right? Where are you, just tell me!"

Rhonda heard a scuffle, traffic noise. It had to be a public phone.

"Brady!"

The stranger came on the line.

"This is your wake-up call!"

"Please don't hurt him! Please let him go! I'll sell my house, anything! I'm begging you! Please!"

"You've got twenty-four hours to pay me in full! Say good-bye to your mother, pup!"

"Mommee!"

"Brady! I love you! Brady!"

The line died in her hand and Rhonda collapsed on the floor. She cradled the receiver, then released an agonizing sob.

Germain was dumbfounded.

"Ma'am, I think you'd better call the police right now."

"Nooooo! He'll kill him!" He'll kill him!"

Germain blinked, then swallowed and looked around until his attention went into the bedroom, the posters of the Mariners, Spider-Man, the models of choppers and cars, s.h.i.+ps, the skateboard.

A boy's room.

On the floor he saw the photograph of a woman and a boy.

Isn't that the murdered nun whose picture's been all over the news?

Sister Anne.

Who's the boy? What the h.e.l.l's going on?

Germain looked at the bed. At the sheets. At the small, dark smears.

Blood?

He reached for his cell phone, pressed 911 to get the police and an ambulance to Rhonda Boland's address when Rhonda hurled herself at him, struggling for his phone.

"I told you no police! Now he'll kill Brady!"

Germain held her back until he'd completed the call.

Rhonda dropped to the floor.

Would she ever see Brady again?

Chapter Fifty-Six.

The 911 operator kept Bob Germain's information off the air.

The kidnapping suspect could be monitoring police calls over a scanner.

Using the computer-aided dispatch system, the operator sent the call immediately to Officers Ron Lloyd and April Vossek, in the district's nearest unmarked unit. Vossek read the call on the car's Mobile Data Computer. The engine roared as they responded without activating their lights or siren, arriving along with paramedics, who examined Rhonda Boland.

They treated her face. She was hysterical. After calming her and taking stock of the bloodied sheets, the tape, the photograph, and other facts, Lloyd and Vossek quickly determined the gravity of what had happened and its link to Sister Anne Braxton's murder.

Urgent calls were made.

In her downtown high-rise apartment, Grace Garner was stepping from her shower when Sergeant Stan Boulder phoned her.

"We've got a kidnapping of a boy in a case that looks to be linked to the Braxton homicide."

"What? What do we know?"

Grace had wrapped a towel around herself and made a watery trail to her bedroom.

"Not much. The call's hot. Only a few minutes old. Dom's on his way to take you to the scene. Get there fast, Grace. Find out what you can before the FBI bigfoots this one."

Grace dressed at top speed, grabbed her badge and gun, and trotted to the elevator. In the lobby she picked up a copy of the morning's Mirror. Mirror. Outside, she read Jason Wade's stories and devoured a banana just as Perelli whipped the Malibu up her driveway. She got in and he left several feet of burning rubber. Outside, she read Jason Wade's stories and devoured a banana just as Perelli whipped the Malibu up her driveway. She got in and he left several feet of burning rubber.

At the Boland home, Lloyd and Vossek briefed Grace and Perelli. Crime-scene people were rolling. The caller's number had come up as a public phone at a gas station at the edge of Renton.

"Renton PD and King County Sheriff's Office are trying to get any surveillance video," Vossek said. "It doesn't look good. The place is pretty beat up."

Kay Cataldo arrived with her crew from the Seattle Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit.

"I brought help," Cataldo nodded to Chuck DePew, who had a team from Was.h.i.+ngton State Patrol's Crime Lab.

"We'll divide the load so we can move faster," DePew said.

The vice section sent detectives from special and general investigations. They set up a trap on Rhonda's phone, started searching through Brady's computer files and e-mails. They got records to run urgent and extensive background checks on Rhonda Boland and her deceased husband Jack Boland. Then Special Agent Jim Crawson called from the Bureau's Seattle Field Office to say agents were on their way.

Grace and Perelli didn't wait.

They took Rhonda alone into her kitchen and had her go back to the previous night and give them a time line of how Brady's kidnapping unfolded. All the while, Grace used a microrecorder and took careful notes.

"Why would he ask you for over a million dollars?" Grace asked.

Rhonda shook her head as tears rolled down her swollen face.

"We're broke. I'm looking for a second job to pay for Brady's operation."

"What sort of operation?"

"He has a tumor."

"Does he need medication?"

"Yes."

"We'll put that out now and in the alert," Grace said.

"What about this 'project' the kidnapper claims to have been involved in with your husband?" Perelli asked.

"I don't know anything about any project that would involve that much. Talk to the bankruptcy people. My husband's biggest landscaping clients were in the range of five thousand a year, tops. I don't know what he's talking about."

"What about former employees?"

"He was self-employed. He'd take Brady along, but he ran things on his own."

"What about further back in your husband's past? You said he gambled. Did he deal in drugs? Did he have any outstanding gambling debts?" Perelli asked.

"I don't think so. I don't know."

"What about his family?" Grace asked.

"He had no family. His parents died in a house fire when he was young."

Grace looked hard at the photograph of Brady with Sister Anne.

According to Jason Wade's article in today's Mirror Mirror, Anne Braxton was also orphaned as a teen and donated one million dollars to the order.

Were these factors at play here?

"How could this guy figure into your husband's business?" Grace asked "I don't know."

"But before your husband started his landscaping business, he gambled." Grace said.

"Yes, I told you, he said he was a professional gambler. When we met in Las Vegas he was playing the tables."

"And before that?"

"I think he held quite a few jobs. He seemed to know a little about a lot of things."

"Rhonda, did he ever do time in jail or prison?"

"If he did, I'm not aware."