Chapter 44
CHAPTER
NASH SLEPT FITFULLY FOR AN hour and then awoke. He checked his watch, had a sudden idea, and left the house in his Range Rover.
“Hey, Billy?” said Nash as he drove up to the little guardhouse.
Billy Adams was a stout young man in his early twenties who dearly wanted to be a real police officer or at least a mall cop, or so he had once confided to Nash. He covered the graveyard shift at the neighborhood’s security gate.
Adams came out of the guardhouse and said, “Mr. Nash, I talked to the cops. I’m so sorry. Have they found out anything about Maggie?”
“No, not yet.”
“She’s gotta be okay. I mean, she’s so beautiful and everything. And nice. When she’d come in late she’d bring me a burger and fries or a Red Bull, stuff like that. And sit here in her car and talk to me. She didn’t have to do that. Nice, like I said.”
“Look, Billy, I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Sure, Mr. Nash. What do you want to know?”
“Well, the previous night, did anything unusual happen?”
Adams squinted at him. “Unusual like what?”
“Out of the ordinary. People coming and going? If someone came and took Maggie, I would imagine they probably came through this gate.”
“Do you know what time we’re talking?”
“Say around one to around five, when it would start getting light. So you would have been on duty, right?”
“Yeah, my shift goes eight to eight. It was pretty quiet, not much going on. Only a few cars. Some folks are away on vacation and all. They let us know so we can check on their homes.” He glanced at a Smart Car emblazoned with the name of the community on its sides parked in a space by the guardhouse.
Next to it was a small Ford compact, which Nash knew was Adams’s personal vehicle.
Adams pointed to the Smart Car and said, “I patrol in that for fifteen minutes on the hour.”
Nash knew that residents had RF strips on their windshield that automatically opened the gate. And visitors were given a special code by the homeowner that they could input in the call box, so if there was no guard at the gate they could still gain access.
Feeling a little out of his depth, Nash looked around and tried to piece together questions that would lead to answers that he needed to know. “So, um, any visitors last night? Or anyone waiting here when you came back from patrol?”
“There were only three visitors. They weren’t on the list, so I called the homes they were going to and received confirmation.
I let them in.” He ducked back inside the guardhouse and came back out with some papers on a clipboard.
He leafed through them. “The last one was at ten fifteen, so outside the time window you asked about.”
Nash studied the long metal bar that stopped traffic from freely entering. “Could someone, say, push the gate open while you’re gone on patrol?”
“They could, but it won’t go back into position.
It locks. That way it shows that there’s been an intrusion.
There was nothing like that last night. The only time that’s happened to my knowledge is when old Mrs. Brunson hit the gas instead of the brakes and bam.
She was really embarrassed. Quit driving for good the next day. Safer all around.”
“And that was it? You didn’t see anyone else?”
“Well, except for the nine-one-one call.”
“The what?” Nash said sharply.
“Cops showed up around two fifteen in a squad car. Said there was a nine-one-one at the Perkins residence over on Falkirk. Turned out it was just a swatting attempt.”
Nash looked blankly at him.
Adams said, “Swatting. You know, when someone calls the cops and says something bad is happening somewhere just to get the cops there, hoping something bad will happen. It happens a lot to politicians. It’s a really shitty thing to do.”
“Is that what the cops told you? That it was this swatting thing?”
“Yeah. They stopped on the way back out and told me.”
“Why would someone swat the Perkinses? They’re in their seventies and retired. And neither of them was ever in politics.”
“No clue. But that’s what the cops said.”
Nash mulled this over for a few moments. “Did you tell the cops that questioned you regarding Maggie about this?”
“Well, no. I just assumed they’d know what the other cops were doing. And the cops last night said it was no big deal, just to forget about it, and so I did. It could have nothing to do with Maggie disappearing.”
“And you’re sure it was the cops?” asked Nash.
Adams looked at him funny. “They were in a police car and had on uniforms with badges and guns, Mr. Nash. Look, I know this has been a real shock and all,” he added with a sympathetic expression.
“What did the cops look like?”
“Um, they were a guy and a gal.”
“Can you describe them? Did they give you their names? Did they have name tags?”
“No, they didn’t mention their names and I couldn’t see their name tags. The guy was big and broad shouldered. The girl was slender. Both had dark hair. I’d say they were in their late thirties, something like that.”
“What else?”
“Uh, the guy was white, and the gal was Asian.”
“Can you go down to the police station and tell them what you just told me?”
“Well, I can after my shift is over. But they probably already know.”
“Just in case, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Nash. Anything to help find Maggie. I’ll go right after my shift ends.”
Nash next drove to the Perkinses’ home. He knew them from some HOA meetings and neighborhood barbeques. He had learned that Phil Perkins had been a banker and his wife a Realtor.
A sleepy-looking Phil answered the door in his pajamas and robe. After Nash explained about Maggie being kidnapped and what Adams had told Nash, Phil said that no one, certainly not the police, had come to his house the previous night.
Phil said, “What the hell is going on?”
Nash had an idea about that, and it scared the crap out of him.