Page 76 of Holmes Is Missing
Oliver Paul’s voice.
Holmes felt his entire body tense. He put the call on speaker and set his phone on the counter. “So you’ve found my little collection,” Paul’s voice continued. “In the old days, you would have figured this out already, without any extra help.”
“Where are you?” asked Holmes, his jaw tight.
“Close enough that I could have killed young Virginia the moment she arrived. I would have made it look like an accident, of course. But as you know by now, she’s not my type.”
Virginia huddled closer to Poe. Holmes looked at the ceiling and into corners of the shop for cameras, then swept his gaze across the faces of the hundreds of clocks on display.
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Sherlock,” said Paul. “Don’t you think a master watchmaker would know where to hide a lens?”
Holmes pointed to the array of photos. “What do you have against all these innocent women?” asked Holmes. He picked up the last one in the line. “What did you have against your own mother? And if you did kill her, would you kill your wife too?”
“We all have our quirks,” said Paul. “Speaking of which, by midnight another mom will die.”
Then silence.
CHAPTER81
ON STATEN ISLAND, Marple watched the rear guard of the search team walk out of the brush and back into the staging area as bright streaks of sunlight broke through the trees at the edge of the compound. Stopping in pairs and small clusters, the officers shed their vests and slung their rifles casually over their shoulders.
The equipment had been hauled out and laid on a canvas tarp behind one of the SWAT vehicles. Paper scraps and loose parts had been placed in clear evidence bags. One by one, the bags were being logged and loaded into cartons in the back of a black NYPD van.
Marple saw Duff emerge from between two camo-patterned trucks. He paused mid-step and looked over. “I guess you’ll need a lift back to the city,” he said.
“Unless you’d prefer that I hitchhike,” Marple replied.
Duff pointed at a patrol car idling near the van. Marple saw the rookie from earlier behind the wheel, talking on her radio. “That car right there,” said Duff. “Officer Amy Polacco will takeyou.” Duff rapped his knuckles on the hood. Polacco looked up. Duff pointed at Marple, then toward the exit road. Polacco got the message. She nodded and lifted a bag off the passenger seat to make room.
Marple walked over. As she passed the evidence van, an officer started to put yet another bag inside. “Wait. Stop,” said Marple, grabbing the officer’s arm. As the bag hung suspended from his glove, Marple leaned forward and lifted the clear plastic toward her face. Inside was a coil of narrow-gauge connector cable with gold-plated jacks at both ends.
What had caught Marple’s eye was a strip about one inch from the end of the cable, where the manufacturing specs were often inscribed. It was an adhesive label. Same bright leaf green as the baby ankle bands. She looked closer. There was lettering on the label, small and faded, barely legible.
Novartis…? NovaTech…?
NovaGen!
Marple yanked out her phone and googled “NovaGen” and “New Jersey.” She whirled around and spotted Duff standing in a cluster of detectives. “Captain!” she shouted. “I know where to look! I know where they took the kids!”
Duff broke from the group. Marple ran over to meet him, pointing at the Google map on her screen. “The baby-band company,” she said. “They have a warehouse in Elizabeth. I think that’s where the truck was headed.”
For a second, Duff just looked at her. Then she saw a tiny shift in his expression to something vaguely resembling trust. He turned and started shouting orders. Marple texted Poe and Holmes the address.MEET ME HERE.
As she slid into the front seat of the patrol car next to Officer Polacco, Marple’s heart was pounding. She realized that herattitude toward speed had evolved quickly over just the past few minutes. She fastened her shoulder harness and looked over.
“I know where the other babies are,” she said. “How fast can this car go?”
In seconds, Polacco had the Ford Interceptor in gear, pulling away, lights flashing. “Let’s find out,” she said.
CHAPTER82
MARPLE AND POLACCOwere among the first of the Staten Island contingent to arrive at the Elizabeth location. It helped that the Goethals Bridge had been blocked and placed under police control. By the time they pulled up at the warehouse, dozens of Jersey police and FBI vehicles were already parked around the perimeter. Five New York State Police SWAT trucks were staged in the parking lot. Camo-suited snipers were sighting from adjacent rooftops. It looked like a battle zone.
Marple looked over at Polacco as they pushed their car doors open. “Nice driving,” she said.
Polacco nodded, then hustled over to an NYPD van and started strapping on armor.
Marple walked to the front of the car and scanned the scene. The target was one of five warehouses stretched along a huge lot near the waterfront. The main building was two stories high. Steel sides. Flat roof. Loading dock running along the entire back end with four corrugated metal doors—all closed.