The Pied Piper by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online Page B

A mommy-mobile. You know. Pretty new. Might have been something printed on the driver’s door.”
    â€œWhat? A name? A business?” LaMoia encouraged.
    â€œListen, I’m not sure about any of this.”
    â€œParked where?” He didn’t want to lose her.
    â€œJust down the street there.” She pointed again, though this time hesitantly. “Maybe two cars ahead of where you’re parked. I was just about where you are.”
    â€œBut not in front of the house, the Shotz house,” he clarified.
    She grimaced. “Pretty damn close. Parking wasn’t easy last night. A lot easier this time of day.”
    LaMoia took notes. “The driver?”
    â€œWas the driver the kidnapper?” she blurted out quickly. “I don’t know about any of this.”
    He removed his hands from her shoulders. “Take your time.”
    She turned around and faced him. “Maybe it wasn’t last night. Hell, I see a lot of cars, you know?”
    â€œThe driver. You were watching to see who got out,” he reminded.
    â€œA worker bee. I wasn’t interested.”
    â€œWorker bee?”
    â€œOveralls. Coveralls. You know? A worker bee. He wasn’t there for me. I tuned him out.”
    LaMoia asked her. “Can you describe him?”
    â€œI tuned him out,” she repeated, seeming confused whether to answer or not. “I don’t know,” she said, searching his face for the right answer. “Maybe that wasn’t last night.” A quick retreat. LaMoia had seen it dozens of times, almost always in the suburbs. People tended to be excited at first by the idea of having witnessed a crime; they felt important, listened to, wanted. Then it slowly dawned on them that, like jury duty, police involvement meant a commitment of time and energy.
    LaMoia decided to try an end run, to play on her apparent tendency to make a show of herself. “Listen, if it’s the publicity you’re worried about: the TV, the papers—they’re likely to swarm a possible witness—there are precautions we can take. We can keep you off the front page.” He left it hanging there as a carrot.
    Her face brightened. Her finger wormed that curl of hair again. “No, no … it isn’t that .”
    â€œYou sounded as if you weren’t sure about the minivan.”
    â€œOh, no,” she corrected. “I’m pretty damn sure about that minivan, Detective.”
    â€œAnd the driver?”
    â€œJust a worker bee in overalls.”
    â€œOveralls,” LaMoia repeated, jotting it down. “Color? Description?”
    Shaking her head, she confessed, “I don’t know. He pulled up over there, and I was thinking housewife until he climbed out. Then I was thinking what did I care because he was a worker bee, and no worker bee is going to pay over two for a home. Not in my experience. One-eighty’s the ceiling in that market and I don’t even list that stuff. The only people I’m interested in at an open house are the ones with that glint in their eyes. You know. Someone shopping? Someone in a buying mood?” She looked at LaMoia. “You were shopping when I saw you. But it wasn’t for a house, am I right? I understand that now. But at the time, I saw that car all buffed out like that, the boots, that hunger in your eyes, and I thought I had a live one.”
    â€œThe minivan? Windows, or a panel truck?” He thought of little Rhonda Shotz in the back of that minivan, and felt sick.
    â€œWindows?” she winced. She wasn’t sure. “Listen, it was white. Windows? No clue about the windows.” Looking around nervously she said, “Tell me about the TV people. Who do we contact about that?”

CHAPTER

    Since the birth of her son Hayes, six months earlier, Trish Weinstein had felt out of synch, as if a week or a month had been stolen from her and she had never made up that loss. At twenty-seven