Молчаливая ночь [with w_cat] - страница 31

[540] Cally winced in pain.

[541] Aika peeled up her friend’s sleeve. The bruises caused by Jimmy’s fingers were now an ugly purple. Any doubts that Bud Folney had about Hunter’s possible cooperation with her brother disappeared. He squatted in front of her. “Cally, you’re not going to get into trouble. I promise you. I believe you found that wallet. I believe you didn’t know what was best for you to do. But now you’ve got to help us. Have you any idea where Jimmy might have gone?”

[542] Ten minutes later, when they left Cally’s apartment, Mort Levy was carrying the bulky gift-wrapped package that held the guard’s uniform.

[543] Shore joined them in the squad car and impatiently fired questions at Mort. As they were driven downtown, they agreed that the search for Jimmy Siddons would be based on the assumption that he might be trying to reach Canada.

[544] “He’s got to be in a car,” Folney said flatly. “There’s no way he’ll travel on public transportation with that child.”

[545] Cally had told them that from the time he was twelve years old, Jimmy could hot-wire and steal any car; she was sure he must have had one waiting near the apartment.

[546] “My guess is that Siddons would want to get out of New York State as soon as possible,” Folney said. “Which means he’d drive through New England to the border. But it’s only a guess. He could be on the Thruway, headed for I87. That’s the fastest route.”

And Siddon’s girlfriend was probably in Canada. It all fit together.

[547] They also accepted Cally’s absolute certainty that Jimmy Siddons would not be taken alive and that his final act of vengeance would be to kill his hostage.

[548] So they were faced with an escaped murderer with a child, possibly driving a car they could not describe, probably headed north in a snowstorm. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Siddons would be too smart to attract attention by speeding. The border was always mobbed with holiday traffic on Christmas Eve. He dictated a message to be sent to state police throughout New England as well as New York. “Has threatened to kill the hostage,” he emphasized.

[549] They calculated that if Siddons had left Cally Hunter’s apartment shortly after six, depending on driving conditions, he’d be between two and three hundred miles away. The alert that went out to the state police contained Cally’s final certainty: On a chain around his neck, the child may be wearing a bronze St. Christopher medal the size of a silver dollar.

[550] Pete Cruise watched as the detectives emerged from Cally Hunter’s building some twenty minutes after arriving there. He noted that Levy was carrying a bulky package. Shore immediately jumped out of the van and joined them.

[551] This time Pete got a good look at the third man, then whistled silently. It was Bud Folney, chief of detectives and in line to be the next police commissioner. Something was breaking. Something big.

[552] The squad car took off with its dome light flashing. A block away its siren was turned on. Pete sat for a moment, debating what to do. The cops in the van might stop him if he tried to go in to see Cally, but obviously something major was going down here, and he was determined to scoop everyone on this.

[553] As he was wondering about looking for a back entrance to the building, he saw the woman he knew to be Cally’s baby-sitter leave. In a flash he was out of the car and following her. He caught up with her when she turned the corner and they were out of sight of the cops in the van. “I’m Detective Cruise,” he said. “I’ve been instructed to see you safely home. How is Cally doing?”

[554] “Oh, that poor girl,” Aika began. “Officer, you people have to believe her. She thought she was doing the right thing when she didn’t phone you about her brother kidnapping that little boy…”

[555] Even though Brian was hungry, the hamburger was hard to swallow. His throat felt like there was something stuck in it. He knew that Jimmy was the reason for that. He took a giant swallow of Coke and tried to think about how Daddy would beat Jimmy up for being so mean to him.