I was expecting anything. A gun pointed at me. A room full of naked men weighing heroin, packing glassine envelopes. But it was nothing like that. I was inside a basement room lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. It looked like something between a knickknack shop and a hoarder’s lair.
I called out, “Lopez. This is the police. Come out with your hands up.”
Something stirred from behind a six-foot-tall stack of newspapers. I had a two-handed grip on my Glock, hoping like hell I wouldn’t have to use it.
A woman’s voice called out, “Helloooo, Janice?”
A weedy-looking faerie of a woman wearing a gauzy floral frock, looking between seventy and ninety years old, appeared from between the newspapers and a rickety china closet.
“Janice,” she said, looking delighted to see me. “You’re early, aren’t you? Is it time for bed?”
I lowered my gun and said, “I’m Sergeant Boxer, ma’am. Did you see a man come in here a moment ago?”
I was breathing hard, managing to speak to the elderly woman while taking in the whole room. I wasn’t sure that Lopez was here. He could have gone through any door and out the other side. I pictured him fleeing on Eighteenth, circling back for his girlfriend, who might still be standing outside the Taqueria del Lobo.
I tapped the radio on my shoulder mike and called Conklin, gave him my location, and told him to call for backup.
And then a lamp toppled and crashed at the back of the jumbled room. I yelled, “Hands in the air!”
A slight man of about thirty, with regular features and wearing a pullover, worn jeans, and run-down sneakers, stood up and showed me his palms.
This was the guy from the ATM photo. I was positive.
I said, “Denny Lopez, put your hands on the top of your head and turn around.”
“You have the wrong guy. You have the totally wrong guy.”
“You’re not Denny Lopez?”
“I’m Denny Lopez, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Are you carrying a weapon?”
“No,” he said. “I have a ballpoint pen in my shirt pocket.” I said, “Running from the police is breaking the law. I’m bringing you in on reasonable suspicion of committing or about to commit a crime.”
“Bullshit!” he shouted.
“Don’t make this hard on yourself, Denny. Do not move, or I’ll add resisting arrest to the charges.”
I patted him down; found the pen, keys, phone, wallet. I put the wallet on a wobbly end table, pulled Lopez’s hands behind his back, and cuffed him for my safety.
I opened the wallet. Bank card. Credit card. Driver’s license. All in the name of Dennis L. Lopez.
When he spoke again, his tone was conciliatory. He said, “Believe me, Officer. I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing.”
And I was suddenly filled with doubt.
I could say with some certainty that he was Carly’s pimp, that he’d been seen near the scene of the murder. But had he killed Carly? Had he kidnapped and maybe killed the two other women? Had this puny guy done all of that?
He’d run from me.
Reasonable suspicion was a gray area, and that’s how the courts had ruled. Sometimes yes. Sometimes reasonable suspicion was an excuse for a bad cop to fire on an innocent person.
I weighed it all—quickly.
Was Denny Lopez’s flight from police cause enough to bring him in? Or was I grasping at the only available straw?
CHAPTER 56
Joe was at his desk that evening with all the lights on, going over photos while he waited for Anna to arrive for their meeting.
Twelve hours ago, at seven thirty this morning, Anna had called him at home to confess that she’d been doing her own stakeout of Petrović’s house, against Joe’s express directions to leave surveillance to the FBI.
She said, “I have to tell you what happened.”
Her Bosnian accent weighed down her English, but Joe listened hard and understood that Anna had been watching the Victorian house when Petrović arrived home last night at around midnight. She described the gray-haired man who had visited. “He looked well off, Joe. He had very good posture and a strong step.”
Anna then recounted what he’d done.
She said, “I disguised myself. I had a scarf on, and there was no moon. But still, he saw me and stopped his car.”
“He stopped next to you?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Jesus,” Joe said. “What did he want?”
“He asked if I needed help. Pure evil was … radiating? Radiating off him. I know what you’re thinking. I have a panic fear of evil. But I tell you, it was as if he could see through me and wanted me to know that he had all the power.”
Joe could almost see the dominant smile Anna had described. He muttered “Jesus Christ” again, then said, “You told him that you didn’t need any help.”
“Yes. Just shook my head. I started my car and drove to my house, and then, you would be proud, Joe. I parked several blocks away in case he was following me. I watched carefully. No one was following me.”
Joe sighed. She couldn’t know that for sure. Petrović knew that Anna was watching him. He might well know her as a survivor of his atrocities in Djoba and his personal attacks against her. Her scar, the size of a handprint, was unforgettable. Petrović might have had someone surveilling her house, and he might have a plan to take out this witness to his old life who knew his real name. It was possible, and it made Joe angry and frightened for this woman he hardly knew.
He said to her in this early-morning phone call, “Do you understand me now, Anna? Stay the fuck away from Petrović.”
“Joe. No shouting.”
“Sorry. Please. Anna, you’re looking for trouble.”
“Joe, listen to me. I woke up at dawn with my heart pounding. I knew the man in the Escalade. I’ve seen him before.”
“You’re sure?”
“I think so. I think he was in the Serbian Army. I don’t know his name and I never knew his name. I think he was a regular soldier. But I also think he was one of the men who came to the hotel.”
CHAPTER 57
Joe had ended the call by saying, “Stop by my office when you get off work. I’ll pull up as many pictures as I can of the invading force in Djoba. Maybe you can pick out that man in the Escalade. Are you up for that, Anna?”
“Yes. I get off at six.”
“So you can be here by six thirty or so,” he said. “Call me if you get hung up at work. I’ll let security know I’m expecting you.”
It was now 7:30 p.m. No call from Anna.
Damn it. Goddamnit. She’d been confronted by someone she thought might be a man who had attacked her, and he’d let her know that he’d seen her hiding in the dark.
Now she was late. Where the hell was she? Had something happened to Anna?
Joe called down to security to double-check that she wasn’t waiting downstairs. The guard at the desk was sure. No one had come to see him.
Joe went back to the photos.
They were still shots printed from videos of the Serbian troops entering Djoba in tanks and trucks and on foot. The soldiers wore fatigues and helmets, carried Zastava machine guns, and had bandoliers strapped across their chests. Most of the footage had been taken by civilians.