The Fourth Motive Read online

  Farrell nodded. “I think your daughter’s stalker did these things deliberately to put her in a vulnerable state of mind. To lull her. The cops, too.”

  “The cops?” Wendt exclaimed. “We weren’t lulled.” He made no attempt to hide his disbelief.

  “You sure about that? Alameda’s a small town. Where were all the cops this morning when her condominium was burning on Bay Farm Island?”

  “All the east end units were at the scene of the fire,” Wendt conceded. “The west end units were on the other side of the island. It was at shift change. Morning crew was probably just getting their coffee.”

  “Where did the kidnap attempt go down?”

  “Midtown.” Wendt’s shoulders dropped.

  “Exactly,” Farrell said. “You think that was a coincidence?”

  “That would mean–”

  “That would mean,” Farrell interrupted, “this guy knows your department’s deployment routine, where the respective beat patrol units are at any given time, and what their response times are from various points on the island. How do you think he knows that?”

  “Either’s he’s got inside knowledge of our department…” Wendt said.

  “Or?” Farrell said.

  “A scanner,” Wendt said. “He’s got a police scanner.”

  “Bullseye.” Farrell squinted at him around his cigarette.

  “What are you two talking about?” the Judge asked.

  “If you listen to the radio traffic on a police scanner,” Sergeant Wendt said, “within a short time, even a layman unfamiliar with police procedure can get a pretty good sense of how cops operate and where they’re deployed. Police scanners are not expensive and can be bought at electronics stores like Radio Shack. You can even build them yourself from parts if you know what you’re doing.”

  “And you think Paige’s stalker has the use of such a device?”

  Wendt looked at Farrell and nodded in reluctant agreement. “I think it’s very likely,” he answered.

  “It fits his modus operandi,” Farrell said. “This guy is meticulous. He obviously does his homework. He knew your daughter’s jogging routine, her work schedule, where she lives, what health club she works out at; and we know he likes electronic gizmos. Why wouldn’t he use a scanner?”

  “You lost me,” the Judge said, further confused. “How do you know he’s an electronics buff?”

  “The stun gun,” Wendt said, snapping his fingers. “Of course.”

  “That’s the device you told me about earlier on the phone? The thing he used to incapacitate Paige this morning?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. He left it at the scene when he fled. Unfortunately, the serial number on it was removed.”

  “I’ll wager you’ll find no fingerprints on it, either,” Farrell said. “Not even on the battery inside.”

  “I wouldn’t take that bet,” Wendt concurred. “And like the paintball gun he used on Paige yesterday morning, tracing something like a stun gun, which can be purchased by mail order, is virtually impossible.”

  “What do you think the odds are you’ll find prints on any of the shell casings ejected from the suspect’s gun?”

  “You briefed Mister Farrell well,” Wendt remarked to the Judge. “I didn’t realize you knew about the shoot-out.” He gave Judge Callen a disapproving glare. “To answer your question, about zero. But at least if we find the gun, we can match the casings up by the markings on the ejector, extractor, and firing pin.”

  “If you find the gun,” Farrell pointed out. “How about the car?”

  “It’s already been recovered in San Leandro. It was an unreported stolen auto taken from the Oakland airport long-term parking lot.”

  “Clean?”

  “As a whistle, so far,” Wendt said, “except for a couple of fresh bullet holes. This guy apparently leaves nothing to chance.”

  “Essentially,” the Judge declared, “despite all that’s occurred, we’ve made no real progress in identifying Paige’s stalker?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Farrell said. “I think we’ve learned some things that might narrow down his motive. If we can figure out his motive, it might lead us to him.”

  “I agree,” Wendt said.

  “I don’t believe it,” a woman’s voice interjected. Sergeant Wendt, Farrell, and Judge Callen looked up as Paige entered the study. She was wearing a sweater and jeans, and her hair was wet. She was trembling in fury. Her heated eyes were locked on her father and her fists were clenched.

  All three men stood up.

  “How long have you been eavesdropping?” the Judge asked.

  “Long enough,” her voice wavered in outrage.

  “I told you there’d be fireworks,” Farrell said, putting out his smoke.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ray Cowell’s face was contorted in a mask of anguish as he knelt over the toilet. He’d been intermittently vomiting and urinating blood for the better part of an hour, and as a result was dizzy and weak.

  He’d driven the stolen Mercury into San Leandro and ditched it at the marina, not far from where he’d parked his Hyundai. He then drove straight home, cursing in agony the entire journey. Once at his mother’s house, Ray staggered down the steps to his basement room and collapsed in the bathroom.

  The ache in his groin was immense and rivaled only by the stinging in his chest. While the body armor he’d been wearing undoubtedly saved his life, the bullet’s impact badly bruised his torso beneath where it struck the vest, possibly even cracking a rib.

  Ray stripped his sweat-soaked clothes off and examined his genitals. To his horror, he found his testicles swollen to the size of golf balls. The slightest touch sent shivers of excruciating pain rippling through his body. The pit of his stomach was a burning knot of fire and he felt a constant urge to relieve himself. But when he did, he found the urine pink with blood, and the pain rose to a fever pitch. It hurt so badly he almost fell to the tile floor.

  Ray vomited, splattering the floor and walls surrounding the toilet as well as himself. The only sounds emanating from his mouth, besides the noise of his violent retching, were the words “slut” and “whore”, over and over.

  Gradually, the puking and tremors subsided. By then, Ray was so weak from exertion, he could barely stand. Using the toilet for leverage, he attempted to leave the bathroom. He was in this state, kneeling over the toilet and waiting for the waves of nausea to subside, when the knocking started.

  “Raymond? You in there? Raymond?”

  The biting staccato of his mother’s voice corresponded with a persistent pounding on the door leading upstairs to the main house, a door Ray kept locked at all times due to his snooping mother. Neither the voice nor the knocking would go away.

  “Leave me alone,” he called out, the effort making his head ache even more. “Go away.”

  “Your boss is on the phone. You open this door, you hear me? Your boss wants to know why you aren’t at work.”

  “Tell him I can’t come in today,” Ray stammered weakly. “Tell him I’m sick.”

  “I will not,” his mother’s shrill voice insisted. “If you think I’m going to make excuses, you’ve got another think coming. You’re going to tell him yourself. Raymond, open this door right now.”

  His mother had been trying to gain entry into his basement apartment for years, ever since he’d moved back home. He’d installed sturdy locks on both the upstairs and outside doors to keep her prying nose out, but she never tired of trying to get in. Sometimes after dinner, as he retired to his room, she followed, as if that night, unlike every other, he would allow her admission to his lair. It had become an obsession with her.

  Ray pushed himself shakily to his feet and made his way to the upstairs door. The soreness in his bruised chest made breathing difficult, and he was forced to shuffle in a knock-kneed gait to lessen the stinging in his groin created by walking. By the time he reached the door, he had to lean against it for several long seconds to recover his breath and prevent
himself from passing out. The pounding on the door continued.

  “Raymond?”

  “Mother,” he began, trying to calm his voice, “I’m very sick. Please tell my boss I’m taking today off on sick leave. I haven’t used a sick day in over eleven years; I’m entitled. Please do it.”

  “No, I won’t, Raymond. You’re going to have to do it yourself.”

  The sound of locks unlatching was followed by the door swinging violently open. The victorious smirk on Margaret Cowell’s face instantly vanished when she saw her son.

  Raymond, pale and stooped, stood shakily before her. His skin was a dreadful hue and he was completely naked. His stringy hair was sweat-plastered over his balding head, and he had vomit-spittle running down his chin onto his chest. But it was his eyes that were the most alarming. They were red-rimmed and glaring, brimming with hatred. For a moment, she didn’t recognize her own son.

  “Listen to me, bitch,” hissed the thing that resembled her son. “You’re going to get on the phone and tell my boss that I’m going to be sick for the next couple of days. If you don’t and I lose my job, the first thing I’m going to do is kick your stupid, fat, lazy, drunk ass out on the street.”

  Ray’s mother started to respond but kept silent. She had once before witnessed such behavior from her son, and was afraid how he would react if she retorted. She retreated from the basement door and from the foul odor emanating out of her son’s room.

  “OK, Raymond, if that’s what you want–”

  “Just do it!” he shouted, slamming the door.

  When his mother had gone and he’d relocked the door, Ray hobbled to his bed and collapsed. The aroma of sweat and barf hung heavily in the room, and he rolled his head from side to side to clear the fog from his pain-addled mind. Above him, suspended by fishing line, model aircraft dived and plummeted. His thoughts turned to the events of earlier, and his face twisted into a grimace of rage.

  How could he have been so stupid? Why didn’t he wait? He wasn’t supposed to take her until tomorrow night. That was the plan. He expected her to be driven or escorted to her father’s house from the fire by one of the police officers at the scene. But when he saw her drive past in the shiny convertible Saab, all alone, her ponytail flowing in the crisp bay air, it was too good to pass up.

  She didn’t even see him come up on her from behind, just like on the beach the day before. What a grass-eater!

  Ray’s dad used to tell him that there were only two kinds of animals on the earth: meat-eaters and grass-eaters. He said grass-eaters were dumb herd animals, like sheep and cattle. Grass-eaters wandered around in groups, always looking down at the ground, oblivious to everything but their next mouthful of grass. Ray’s dad said that’s why nature made so many of them, because they were easy to prey on.

  Meat-eaters, Ray’s dad told him, usually hunted alone. Meat-eaters were always on the prowl, warily searching for grass-eaters to feed on. Or for other predators who might wish to consume them. Meat-eaters were like the tigers at the Oakland zoo, or the wolves he watched on television on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as a boy.

  Ray’s dad told him it was always better to be the diner than the dinner. Ray decided early he would not become a grass-eater. He would become a meat-eater.

  But this morning, in his haste to exploit the golden opportunity of her unexpected solitude on the road, Ray screwed up. He’d failed to heed his father’s words and acted like a grass-eater when he fixated on her. Certainly not like a predatory meat-eater.

  He’d rammed her car, and before the slut had time to recover from the impact, he rendered her senseless with the Nova stun gun. It worked just like the brochure promised.

  Then all hell broke loose. He was dragging the whore to his car when he was tackled. He didn’t even see the guy, because he was blinded by the elation he felt at having the slut practically fall into his lap. And by his burgeoning arousal. As he’d dragged her along, helpless to stop him, Ray could feel himself become erect beneath the coveralls. Another grass-eater quality: distraction. Before he knew it, Ray was thrown to the ground.

  The stun gun didn’t work too well on the young blond man; one of the leads must have snagged on the sleeve of his jacket, blunting the charge. It only dropped him to his knees. That’s when Ray made his worst mistake.

  Ray should have stepped back, drawn his pistol, and executed the son of a bitch when he had the chance. But he didn’t; he instinctively tried to use the stun gun again, and the guy was too fast. He blocked the Nova and punched Ray in the crotch.

  Ray had never before experienced such pain. Lights danced before his eyes and he was surprised he didn’t pass out. He dropped the stun gun and staggered back. He could barely breathe, and his balls felt as if they would erupt like the volcanoes depicted in the National Geographic magazines in his mother’s bathroom.

  But Ray didn’t fall. He went to his knees, like his opponent, but didn’t go down. Ray was proud of that. If he had, it would have been all over; the big blond guy would have had him.

  Through the blinding pain, Ray reached for his pistol. He almost had it out when the blond dude pulled a gun of his own. As they simultaneously rose to their feet, his adversary fired first and shot him square in the chest.

  The bullet’s impact initially hurt less than he thought it would, a lot less than the punch in the groin. The body armor really worked. The bullet struck the metallic trauma plate in the center of the vest, knocking Ray back a step. The most pronounced effect of the gunshot was that it snapped Ray out of the agonizing sluggishness created by the groin punch. He raised his pistol and returned fire as the blond guy missed with a second shot. Ray emptied the entire magazine of nine-millimeter bullets in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, by then the bastard had taken cover behind the slut’s smashed car. Which was all right with Ray; he used the time to limp to his car and make his getaway.

  It had been a very close call. Ray knew his anxiousness to grab the whore was what had nearly cost him his life. He’d gotten greedy and lost his focus. He’d let himself become distracted. Now he was going to have to change the plan and the timetable to implement it.

  Haste makes waste.

  Who was the blond guy? A cop assigned to protect her? Ray doubted it. If he’d been part of a protection detail, he would have been better prepared and wouldn’t have been alone.

  An off-duty cop who happened to pass by at the time of the crash and witness the attempted kidnapping? Possible. But if he was an off-duty cop, wouldn’t he have drawn his gun and yelled “freeze” or “police” or something similar?

  The guy sure looked like a cop. Ray’s mind struggled to find the answer. A boyfriend?

  A possibility Ray couldn’t ignore. Who else but a boyfriend would follow the slut like that?

  Ray made up his mind to check into that likelihood. He knew that intelligence was his most effective weapon. He learned that from one of the many books he’d read over the years as a member of the military-book-of-the-month-club.

  Ray’s breathing was finally beginning to calm from the argument with his mother. He tried to let himself drift off to sleep, despite the throbbing in his scrotum and chest. Although the bullet that struck his chest didn’t seem to hurt at the time, when Ray got home and doffed the armor, he found a large raised welt over a deep bruise and discovered it hurt to inhale or exhale deeply.

  Ray nodded off, comforting himself, as he often did, with memories of Sissy. He remembered the night she put him to bed with a glass of milk and promised to buy him a new baseball glove at the end of the summer.

  The last thought in Ray’s head before sleep finally took him was the memory of Sissy’s breasts, winking at him through the dim light in his father’s garage.

  CHAPTER 17

  “What in the hell is he doing here?” Paige demanded.

  “Mister Farrell is working for me,” her father answered.

  “Doing what, exactly?”

  “Consulting.”

  “It w
ould figure you two would be acquainted,” she said. “You both share the same ethics. Or lack thereof.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Farrell said.

  Paige glared at him. “What’s your story, Sergeant Wendt? Were you aware this felon was working for Dad?”

  “Alleged felon,” Farrell corrected her. “I was never charged with any crime.” She ignored him.

  “I just found out about Mister Farrell’s involvement myself,” Wendt told her. “Believe me, I was as surprised as you.”

  “I’ll bet,” she said, returning her ire to her father. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “That I didn’t want my daughter dead.”

  Paige eyed Farrell. “That guy who intervened today; I knew I’d seen him before, I just couldn’t place him. He was with you in federal court last year, wasn’t he? He was your accomplice during your multistate crime spree?”

  “My partner, you mean,” Farrell corrected her again. “And you’re welcome.”

  “For what?” she challenged.

  “For saving your life,” the Judge said. “Regardless of how you feel about hiring Mister Farrell, the irrefutable fact remains, if I had not, you wouldn’t be standing here now berating us.”

  Paige looked to Sergeant Wendt to refute her father’s claim. Wendt looked at his shoes.

  She turned to her father. “You had me followed?” There were both disbelief and outrage in her voice.

  “Yes,” Farrell answered for Judge Callen. “It was all I could do at this point in the investigation.” He met her gaze evenly. “I don’t regret it.”

  “Nor do I,” Callen said. “Like it or not, you owe your safety, and quite probably your life, to Mister Farrell’s astute judgment and proactive intervention.”

  “Where were the police all this time a lunatic was stalking me and a private investigator was following me?” Paige asked Wendt.

  “Getting permission,” Farrell answered before Wendt could speak. Wendt looked up from his feet and grunted his admission that Farrell was right.