Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [76]
Hatcher intruded on their conversation. “You got a minute?” he said.
Carter grimaced. “Not now, Hatch.”
“I need to talk to you,” Hatcher persisted.
Carter excused himself from the others and led Hatcher into his office, closing the door behind him with some force. “Maybe you haven’t heard,” the chief said, “but we’ve got a high-profile kidnapping on our hands.”
“Yeah, I heard. That’s why I’m here. I call Jackson and he tells me that Kloss pulled him from me—Hall, too—and has them with the parents of the kid. What gives?”
“What gives, Hatch, is that we’ve got every available cop on this case, and that’s the way it’ll be until it’s resolved.”
“Good. So, get Jackson and Hall back here and we’ll work it.”
Carter shook his head. He was distracted by an administrative officer who entered the office and handed him a file folder.
“You hear what I said?” Hatcher asked after the officer had departed.
Carter sighed. He backed to the side of his desk and perched on its edge. “I talked with Kloss only a few minutes ago,” he said. “The parents—you know who they are.”
“Yeah, the hotshot attorney, Rollins, Colgate’s buddy.”
“Right. Kloss says Mr. and Mrs. Rollins have asked that Jackson and Hall remain with them.”
“Why, for christsake?”
A tiny smile came to Carter’s lips. “Maybe because they’ve bonded with them, Hatch. It happens.”
“Bonded?” he snorted. “That’s a laugh.”
Carter pushed away from the desk. “I have to go, a joint press conference with the Bureau. Stay around. Check in with Eldridge in missing persons. He’ll have something for you to do—without Jackson and Hall.”
The chief slapped him on the arm and was gone.
TWENTY-FIVE
Paul, as he was called, watched television. The kidnapping dominated every news cycle, pushed anything and everything else off the electronic front pages of the cable news channels, and local stations, too. There was little other news to report, each segment rehashing previous ones, talking heads trying desperately to inject fresh insight into the story, to outdo one another, to scoop the competition. One channel had managed to obtain a grainy picture of Samantha from its photo and video morgues and displayed it behind the newscaster’s voice-over.
Paul sat up when Governor Bob Colgate’s face appeared on the screen, caught by camera crews as he exited his Georgetown home. “I have no comment at this time,” he said. “It’s a police matter. I will say, however, to whomever did this, you can make it right by returning Samantha safely to her family.”
“Have you spoken with the Rollinses?” a reporter shouted.
Colgate ignored the question and climbed into a waiting limousine.
Paul left the TV, put on his ski mask, and opened the door to the bedroom where Greta, as she was called, sat on the bed with Samantha. He motioned with his finger for her to come out of the room.
“Anything new on TV?” Greta asked.
“They just had Colgate on. Big nothing. There’s a press conference coming up. The FBI’s been brought in.”
“No surprise, state lines and all.”
“Yeah. No surprise. I hope it stays that way.”
“No word from Y-man?”
“No.”
“So we sit and do nothing until we hear.”
“That’s the drill. How’s the kid?”
“She’s all right. Scared. Keeps asking me why we did this to her.”
Paul’s grin was crooked. “And you told her, of course.”
“I told her it was strictly business, that once the business was over she could go home.”
“She eat?”
“Some. I just hope Y-man doesn’t let this drag out too long. The Virginia cops will be all over it, too.”
“He said two days max.”
“I hope he’s right. Want me to make dinner?”
“I’ll go out and pick up a pizza.”
“Go out?”
“Yeah. Nobody knows who we are or what’s gone down. I’m in the mood for a pie. Besides, I have to make the call.”
• • •
The wait continued at the Rollinses’ house, too, although pizza wasn’t on the menu. Kloss called Metro and instructed someone to pick up Chinese food