id86
Jessie sat beside Ryan on the couch in Parker’s Central Station office, listening as the captain updated them on the situation.
“Robertson will be arraigned on Monday morning,” she said. “We’ll keep her here over the weekend rather than send her to Twin Towers. I want her to have a full psych evaluation before she’s put in gen pop over there.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Ryan said. “From what I could tell, she wouldn’t do very well with the other inmates.”
“Any word on how Sienna Ford is doing?” Jessie asked.
“Last I heard they had stitched up her head and were giving her CT scan,” Parker said. “The doctors thought that she pretty clearly had a concussion, but they were checking for internal bleeding.”
“I know how that goes,” Jessie muttered.
“I know you do,” Parker said. “I’m just glad that Robertson didn’t get a swing in at you.”
“Me too,” Ryan said quietly.
“I think that by the end, she was more interested in getting my approval than bashing my head in,” Jessie observed. “Maybe that’s why she told us the location of the storage unit where she’d planted her two remaining canisters.”
“Whatever works, Ms. Hunt,” Parker said as there was a knock on her door.
“Come!” the captain barked.
Her administrative aide, Officer Shaniqua George, opened the door. “Can I borrow you for a moment, Captain?” she asked.
“I’ll be right back,” Parker said, stepping out of the office.
Once she was gone, Ryan leaned over and whispered in Jessie’s ear.
“I’ve been intending to ask you, did you mean what you said to Danielle Robertson about kids?”
“What did I say exactly?” Jessie asked, only half-joking.
“That if you ever had them, you’d do everything you could to give them a better childhood than yours. It made it sound like you were considering the idea.”
“Oh that,” Jessie replied, with a dismissive wave. “I was just saying whatever I thought would get Danielle to give herself up.”
“Sure you were, Ms. Hunt,” he said, twinkle in his eye. “Sure you were.”
Just then Parker returned to the room. “I have what I hope is some good news.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll take it,” Ryan told her.
“I just heard from the folks handling the search for Hank Costabile,” she said. “While we don’t have a definitive lock on his location, we think we know where he is.”
“Where?” Jessie asked.
“By the time we got someone on the Pacific Surfliner train in San Diego, he was gone, that is assuming he was ever actually on it. But we were able to use cameras at the train’s last stop, Santa Fe Depot, to find someone matching his physical description—bald, thick-trunked, and wearing what Costabile was last seen in—leaving the station and getting in a cab. Our people ID’d the medallion number and tracked down the taxi driver. Apparently, the rider, who paid for his trip in cash, also matched Costabile’s description. The driver said he drove the rider to the San Ysidro border crossing near Tijuana, where the passenger apparently said he was going to walk across the bridge and have himself a lost weekend. We’re currently attempting to acquire U.S. Border Patrol footage from around the time of the drop-off. If it bears out, Ms. Hunt’s theory—that he may have just gotten sick of being followed all day, every day and decided to give us the slip for a temporary reprieve from surveillance—might turn out to be the case.”
“Do you buy that?” Ryan asked.
“Everything suggests that he may just be looking to get lost for a while,” Parker acknowledged, “but I’ll feel a lot more confident once I see the actual footage from the border crossing, with facial recognition verifying that it’s him. Costabile had lots of friends in the department and among folks on the other side of the law. I’d imagine that some of them are bald and built like bulldozers too.”
“And I’d also imagine that some of them feel like they owe him a favor,” Jessie added.
Parker nodded in agreement.
“That’s why, out of an abundance of caution, we’d like to leave that unit outside your house tonight,” she said. “Same with the one at Kat Gentry’s building. It might be overkill but I’d rather not take the chance.”
“I think we’re both okay with all that, right?” Ryan said, looking at Jessie.
She nodded. “If you’re going all out,” she said, “you may want to have a unit accompany us to our last stop of the evening.”
“Where is that?” Parker asked.
“I’m going to see Mark Haddonfield at Twin Towers,” Jessie said.
The captain shook her head in disapproval.
“I was hoping you’d change your mind about that,” she said. “Don’t you worry that you’re just feeding into his delusions of grandeur by meeting with him in person?”
“After what happened to Janice Lemmon, I have to do something to make this stop,” Jessie said. “The doctors say that she’ll be okay, but that doesn’t change anything. People are using Haddonfield’s manifesto as a guidebook to go after the folks I care about. And if playing to his ego keeps them safe, then it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.”
“Are you good with this?” Parker asked Ryan.
“Captain,” he replied, sounding amused, “I would think that by now, you’d know it’s not my call.”
“All right,” Parker said, despite her lack of enthusiasm. “Give me a minute to coordinate with Sergeant Crowley. He’s on dispatch duty tonight. He’ll have a squad car accompany you there.”
“Better hurry,” Jessie said. “I’m heading over there now. And once that’s done I’m checking in on my sister and my best friend. As far as I’m concerned, my work day is officially over.”
“And you think Haddonfield’s delusional?” Ryan cracked.
“What does that mean?” Jessie asked.
“I’ve known you a long time, Jessie Hunt. Your work day is never officially over.”