Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [92]
“Yes, but I haven't seen it recently.”
“Then if you'll bear with me for a few minutes, I'll give you the background.”
As Schwartz rapidly laid out the history of the murderer last known as Charley Muir and why his coworker believed that he and Zach Lanning were the same person, Ted Wesley was already envi?sioning the positive press coverage that he would get if his office was able to capture this fugitive. “You said this guy lives in Glen Rock. Have you got an address for him?” he asked Schwartz.
“Yes, but remember our tipster said that when Lanning called his boss this morning to quit his job, he told him he was leaving for Florida right away. He may already be gone.”
“I'll put my detectives on it right now. We'll get back to you.”
Wesley put the phone down and pressed the intercom. “Get Billy Tryon in here. And get the Des Moines prosecutor on the phone.”
“Right away.”
As he waited impatiently, Wesley tapped his reading glasses on his desk. Glen Rock was a quiet, upscale town. Emily lived there, and so did some other people in the office. He reached behind him and took the office directory from a shelf. The tipster had given Zachary Lanning's address as 624 Colonial Road.
Wesley's eyes widened when he opened the directory and looked up Emily's address. She lived at 622 Colonial. My God, if this is the right guy, she's been living next door to a nut, he thought.
At precisely the same moment, the Des Moines prosecutor's call came through and Billy Tryon rushed into the office.
Twenty minutes later, Tryon, Jake Rosen, and the squad cars from the Glen Rock Police Department were at the house where Zach Lanning had lived for two years. When there was no answer at the door, a Glen Rock officer got the number of the realtor who rented the house to Zach and called him to get permission to enter the house.
“Sure you can go in,” the realtor replied. “When Lanning phoned me this morning, he told me he'd hang the keys on a hook in the garage. His rental is over. Why are you looking for him?”
“I'm not at liberty to say why right now, sir,” the young officer re?plied. “Thank you.”
They retrieved the key from the garage and, with guns drawn, cautiously went inside, then fanned out, checking every room and closet. They found no one.
Billy Tryon and Jake Rosen then went back through each room to see if there were any clues as to where Lanning had gone but there wasn't so much as a newspaper or magazine in the entire house.
“Get the fingerprint people here right away,” Tryon said. “We should be able to get prints and then we can verify that he's our guy.”
“I hope we can get prints,” Jake Rosen commented. “This guy must be compulsively neat. There isn't a spot of dust anywhere and take a look at the way the glasses are lined up in the cabinet.”
“Maybe he went to West Point,” Tryon snapped, sarcastically. “Jake, tell the Glen Rock guys to ring the doorbells on this block and see if any of the neighbors know anything about him. Make sure the town cops know that we already put out an APB on his car and li?cense plate.”
Tryon looked around. A small device on the sill of the kitchen window caught his eye. Then he was astonished to hear a dog barking as loudly as if it were in the room. The sound was coming through the device, which was operating as an intercom system.
He looked out the window. Ted Wesley had told him Emily lived next door to Lanning. Right now she was hurrying out of her car and up the walkway to her front door. That's why the dog's barking, he thought.
He watched as she opened the door and went inside. Then he could distinctly hear her call out a greeting to her pet.
“Jake,” he yelled, “come in here and look at this. That guy Lan?ning has some kind of microphone planted in Emily's house and he's been listening to everything she says.”
“Come on, Bess,” Emily was saying. “I'll let you out quick. There's something going on next door with that crazy guy who used to walk you.”
“My God,” Jake muttered