Trial Junkies (A Thriller) (32 page)

It took everything he had not to piss his pants.

— 48 —

H
UTCH WAS LARGELY
silent during the cab ride to his apartment. He was thinking about some of the parts he had played, the tough guys pushed to the limit, who, when confronted by danger, never backed down.

In such stories, everything was carefully scripted. The hero always had the right words to express himself, and when danger arose, he invariably utilized his combat training from his days in the military or his years on the police force or his upbringing among the monks who had schooled him in the deadly art of Kung fucking Fu.

But the movies weren't real life, were they? And Hutch didn't have any combat training to fall back on. His encounter with Langer had proven that he was pretty much ineffectual when confronted by danger. If the guy had decided to gut him right then and there, Hutch doubted he would've been able to stop him.

And if Langer had recognized him, had better night vision, had known Hutch was the guy who sat across from him in court, the guy he had encountered in the bathroom, the guy who seemed to be friends with the object of his obsession—or one of them, at least—Hutch would likely be lying on a sidewalk in a pool of blood.

So much for playing the hero.

Hutch didn't consider himself to be a physically weak man. Before the fall into drugs and alcohol, he had belonged to a gym and had worked out three times a week. Sometimes more. And in the first several months of his recovery, he had once again started lifting weights, this time hiring a trainer to get him back into shape. His newly developed six pack—de rigueur for any leading man these days—had been prominently displayed in several shirtless scenes in the pilot he'd shot back in April.

But physical fitness meant very little if you failed to act—and because of that failure, because he had been too spooked to even move, Hutch felt like a fool.

He had told Ronnie that he'd simply lost Langer in the maze of streets, not bothering to mention the confrontation. Yet she seemed to sense that he was holding back. That something more had happened near that alleyway.

But she said nothing. Didn't question him. Merely took his hand in hers in the back of the cab and pretended he had told the truth.

And for that, Hutch was grateful.

Silent, but grateful.

"Y
OU'RE NOT GONNA
believe this," Matt said. "Wait till you see what I've got."

He and Andy were standing in the lobby as the night man held the door open for Hutch and Ronnie. He had a manila folder tucked under one arm and Hutch could tell that he was excited as a kid with a brand new bicycle.

He was also sporting a small, dark bruise near his jawline.

"What the hell happened to
you
?" Hutch asked.

Andy smirked. "He ran into a fist."

"One of old man Keating's pals," Matt said. "Apparently the bastard likes the way things are progressing and doesn't want us gumming up the works." He looked at Ronnie. "He doesn't think much of you, my dear."

"And why am I not surprised?"

"I should've warned you," Hutch said to Matt, still feeling the ache in his side. He had peed at a gas station, relieved to discover there wasn't any blood in the stream. "They made a run at me, too."

"I'm a big boy. And I've got a big boy lawyer that Keating'll be hearing from when this shit blows over. Never could stomach that supercilious fuck." He patted the folder under his arm. "What do you say we head upstairs?"

"By all means," Hutch said.

A few minutes later, Matt dropped the folder on the dining room table. The tinny sound of audience laughter rose from the living room, where Lola Baldacci was watching Leno on Hutch's big screen, little Christopher curled up next to her on the sofa, fast asleep.

Lola ran a loving hand over the boy's head as she greeted them all with a polite "hello" and a mild look of disapproval. And although she had never met Matt or Andy, no introductions were made, and that seemed to be just fine with her.

Hutch thought about his conversation with Ronnie on the train, the phrase
Dysfunction Junction
coming to mind. Lola Baldacci was an oddly cold woman, whose muted reaction to everything around her—except Christopher—was strikingly counter to her daughter's often unbridled emotionality. She was one of those people who were difficult to read, and he didn't doubt that she had bottled her emotions up tight the day her son died, and had never again let them loose.

Maybe his death had broken something inside of her. Or maybe she had always been this way. Hutch didn't care to guess.

While Ronnie scooped up Christopher and carried him into the spare bedroom, Andy laid claim to the last Double Diamond in the fridge, and was busy guzzling it down when the phone rang.

Hutch answered it and Maurice told him that Tom and Monica had arrived.

When they joined Hutch, Matt and Andy in the dining room, the mood much more somber than the previous night, Matt flipped open the folder to show them another stack of computer printouts.

At the top of the stack was the familiar photocopy of Langer's Illinois state ID.

"I spent the afternoon showing this thing around. I was hoping to get a hit at the apartment building across from the lot where Jenny was found."

"Any luck?" Hutch asked.

"A complete bust. Nobody I talked to saw him. Not before, not after."

"So the only connection we have between him and Jenny is the sighting at the law office. We need that surveillance tape. Maybe I should give the receptionist a little nudge."

"Give her time," Matt said. "I think she'll come through."

"I hope so."

Ronnie came back from the bedroom and went into the kitchen to draw herself a glass of water. "Did I miss anything?"

"Not really," Hutch said, then looked at Matt. "I'm hoping we're about to get to the good part."

And so they did. If you could call it good.

"I had breakfast with a source of mine who's ex-FBI," Matt told them. "He agreed to cash in a favor and run Langer's photo through facial recognition to see if he got a hit."

"And did he?" Ronnie asked.

"Oh, yeah," Andy said. "And then some."

Matt took several sheets from the stack and handed them to Hutch and Ronnie. Hutch looked down at a printout of another state ID, this one from Wisconsin, showing Langer's face and the name Robert Edward Schlipp. The next sheet featured a Massachusetts ID issued to Alan Matthews. And the third showed Langer as Thomas Keel from Albany, New York.

Hutch looked over at Ronnie's stack and saw at least three more aliases.

"Holy shit," he murmured. "This guy's all over the place."

"How many identities does he have?" Monica asked.

"So far we've found seven," Matt said, "including Frederick Langer. And all seven use the same ploy—stealing the identity of a dead child. Looks like he's been doing this for at least eight years."

She frowned. "So which one is he?"

"Probably none of them."

"But it gets worse," Andy said. "A lot worse. Tell them about the girls, Matt."

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Girls?"

Matt reached to the folder again and took out the remaining sheets of paper. "I did an Internet search, trying to match the dates that the IDs were issued, with any violent crimes in the area during a six month window. I figured it was a long shot, but I got five hits in four of the states. And all but one of those hits originated from the same city that Langer was living in at the time. Two of them were in Boston."

He laid five sheets of paper onto the table top as if he were dealing out the river cards in a hand of Texas Hold'em. Each one featured a photograph of a young woman, and each of those women had dark hair and the same basic facial structure, looking very much like the waitress that Langer had been staring at just a couple hours ago.

And, of course, Ronnie.

They all looked just like Ronnie.

"This can't be a coincidence," Matt said. "Two of these women are missing and presumed dead, and the other three were found stabbed to death in their own homes."

They were all silent for what seemed a very long time, and Ronnie's face went pale, looking as if she were about to faint. Hutch reached over and steadied her with a hand, rubbing her shoulder—a move that wasn't lost on Andy.

"Bottom line," Matt said, "Langer's a serial perp. He moves around state to state to keep the pattern from emerging. And he was targeting Ronnie when he signed up for that pet grooming class."

They all looked at her, but she said nothing, clearly jolted by the news.

"That waitress you two saw must be his back-up," Andy added. "Or he's planning a double, like he did in Boston."

On the ride up in the elevator, they had told Matt and Andy about their night, Hutch conveniently leaving out the part about his nearly lethal encounter with Langer.

But something here didn't make sense, and Hutch was surprised by a creeping feeling of skepticism.

"I don't get it," he said. "If Langer was targeting Ronnie, then why did he kill Jenny? She's not even close to his type."

Andy waved a dismissive hand. "Who the fuck knows how this guy's brain works? Maybe it was an impulse thing. He saw Jenny and Ronnie at the Godwyn Theater and felt like getting his rocks off before he made the big move."

Hutch shook his head. "So he waits almost a month to kill her? Doesn't sound like much of an impulse."

"Maybe it takes him a while to get it up."

"But what about the calls?" Hutch said, glancing from Matt to Andy. "Why would he make all those phone calls, pretending to be Ronnie?"

Matt shrugged. "This could be some new kind of game for him. He's ramping it up. Rather than go after Ronnie himself, he does Jenny, sets Ronnie up, then sits back and gets off on his handiwork."

"Guy's probably jerking off in the courthouse men's room every chance he gets," Andy said. "And just in case that's not enough for him, he's got the waitress in reserve."

It still didn't make sense to Hutch, but Andy was right. Who knew how this guy's brain worked? What they
did
know was that he was warped and dangerous and they needed to expose him.

Hutch surprised himself again. "We've gotta call the cops."

Andy laughed. "A lotta good that'll do."

"We can show them the photos. They'll have to listen to us now."

"We've already talked about this," Matt said. "Printouts from the web don't really prove anything and, believe me, these idiots are too proud to admit when they've made a mistake. It doesn't help they've got that fascist Keating breathing down their necks."

"What about your FBI friend?" Tom asked.

"Ex-FBI. And while he agrees Langer's a problem, he thinks the bureau's too busy chasing Islamic bogey-men to care. They might run a check, but it would be low priority."

Hutch said, "You think I could hire
him
to look into it?"

Matt shook his head. "He made it clear this was a one-time favor and nothing more. I can't even tell you his name."

"So it's back to us," Hutch said, once again thinking about Langer's knife at his throat. He wanted more than ever to tag this freak, and next time he'd get it right. He just hoped he hadn't spooked Langer enough to make him run.

Spooked?

Who was he kidding? If anyone was spooked it was
him
.

But he was still convinced that Langer hadn't recognized him. That the darkness and his meager attempt at a disguise had done their job. The real test, however, would be when he walked into that courtroom tomorrow morning, assuming Langer bothered to—

A sharp, horrified shriek rose from the living room.

"You stupid, stupid fool!"

They all swiveled their heads to find Lola Baldacci jumping to her feet as she stared at the TV screen. Then she turned a pair of accusing eyes on Ronnie and shouted, "What did you do? What the
hell
did you do?"

They all scrambled out of their seats and into the living room, their gazes falling on the widescreen as
BREAKING NEWS!
played across the bottom in bold white letters, the newscaster telling them that one Daniel Tillman had been found shot to death, an apparent suicide, in his Sedona, Arizona home.

Hutch was at a loss.

He had no idea why Lola—normally a cold fish—was so upset by this. Or why she had shouted at Ronnie. Or why something that had happened over sixteen hundred miles away would be considered newsworthy enough to interrupt Leno.

But when he looked at Ronnie, her face had lost all color as she stumbled back, knees buckling, grabbing at the wall to keep herself from falling, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.