Twenty-Eight Detective Walter Duncan #2
He stares at me, unmoving, his face suddenly clear of emotion. “You read the court transcripts. The statements I made to the police. You should know the answer.”
I shake my head. I am just not buying it. “You had help, didn’t you?” I’m on one hell of a fishing expedition, and I’m just hoping he’ll take the bait. My gut, every instinct I’ve got, tells me he had assistance escaping that bastard.
“Maybe I got lucky.” He turns his hands up. “Maybe Fanning had a bad day. Who knows?”
“What was your relationship with Dr. Lewis Newhouse?”
His expression closes. “Detective, I think—”
“Whatever secret you’re keeping, Mr. Sanchez,” I cut him off, can’t let him take that path, “you’re not helping anyone. I need you to be straight with me. Lives depend on what happens next.”
He smirks. “You mean Fanning’s life?”
Anger flares. I let him see it. “Not just his. There are others who are hanging by their fingernails here. I need your help. Now. And you’re wasting my time. If that bastard isn’t caught, then he’ll just do the same thing to some other kid that he did to you and all the others.”
Silence swells between us for a moment. I see the change in his face when the tide of his emotions shifts in my direction.
“I’ve never told anyone this,” he confesses. “She asked me not to tell and I didn’t. I owed her my life, and I wasn’t about to let her down. Do you understand the position I was in as a child? She literally saved my life.”
“Who?” My heart is racing. “I need a name.”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea. I never knew her name. When Fanning took me, he didn’t just take me to some parking lot or run-down building to rape me. He took me home. He was going to keep me. He said as much.”
That part is news as well. No other victim that we know of was kept. “Go on.”
“He already had another kid, a girl he’d been keeping.
I don’t know for how long. But she was older than me.
I think maybe he was done with her and wanted someone younger.
She must have sensed this and decided we both needed rescuing.
She is the one who put him down so we could escape.
She made me promise never to tell anyone about her.
I think she was afraid the police would blame her for what he’d done. ”
I can scarcely sit still. God dammit, I need more than that. “He never called her by name?”
Sanchez shook his head. “He called her ‘it.’ She had this old, ragged teddy bear.” He shudders visibly. “She was pale and thin and her clothes were tattered and dirty. It was horrible. But she saved my life, and I made a promise to keep her secret.”
“I understand.” I make a decision quickly. “You have my word that I will keep this between the two of us, but I need more information. If I have a sketch artist come—now—do you think you could describe her in detail?”
He smiles, his dark eyes bright with emotion. “I will never forget what she looked like. She was my superhero, always will be. You don’t need to call anyone. I’ve drawn pictures of her my whole life.”
Anticipation has me stretching over his desk as he digs through a drawer. He pulls out a sketch pad and flips it open to a page.
“This is the last one I did. I was thinking of her when Fanning was released last month.”
I stare at the young girl’s face. She looks vaguely familiar. I mentally run down the list of Fanning’s known victims. She doesn’t look like any of them. “Can I keep this for a while?”
He nods. “If it will help, yes.”
I meet his gaze and consider for a long moment if I really want to know the answer to my next question. “This is important. I need a straight answer. How did you know Dr. Newhouse?”
He lets out a long, low breath. “Just before the trial, he talked to me after school one day. I thought he was just another of the doctors the police insisted I see, but he said no. He came to speak to me about something different.” Sanchez stares at his hands for a moment.
“He told me if I stuck with my story and never told anyone about the girl that he would pay for me to go to college anywhere I wanted to go.” He laughs.
“I thought he was bullshitting me, but he wasn’t.
Even before I graduated high school, he had already made all the financial arrangements.
Even sent a letter of recommendation for me.
He did exactly what he said he would do.
The funny thing is, he didn’t have to. I would never have told anyone about her anyway.
I made a promise and I intended to keep it. ”
“How did Dr. Newhouse know about her?” Every cell in my body is on alert. “You said you never told anyone.”
“I have no idea. I never told another living soul until just now.”
The realization hits me then, shakes me to the very core of my being. I draw in a hard breath. Swallow back the denial burgeoning in my throat. “Did Newhouse mention why he wanted to protect this girl? Was she a patient of his?”
Sanchez shakes his head. “He did not. Looking back, I guess that’s the only reasonable explanation.
She had to be a patient of his. I learned later that Newhouse was a major donor to a number of organizations that help children who are victims of abuse.
I guess maybe it was personal somehow for him. ”
“You never heard from him again?” My pulse is tripping. I can’t find my footing with the theory swelling in my brain.
Sanchez looks away for a moment before he answers.
“I hadn’t heard from him in all those years until he contacted me back in January.
He said we needed to talk about a couple of things.
First, he warned me that Fanning’s release date was coming up and that I should be aware, watchful.
Dr. Newhouse feared the bastard would try to seek revenge.
But I figured Fanning was just a sad old man incapable of hurting anyone anymore.
Just in case, I had a new security system installed at my house and sent my wife to her mother’s in Memphis while I was gone to Mexico. ”
Whatever else Fanning said to Newhouse, this confirms the doc had reason to suspect the bastard might reach out to some of his victims. “What was the other thing he wanted to talk to you about?”
His gaze searched mine for a long moment.
“He wanted to make sure our deal remained in effect. He said he’d heard I was having a kid.
He insisted on setting up a college fund for my unborn child.
” New tears bloom in his eyes. “I know Dr. Newhouse is dead, but I feel like I am betraying him now. He was good to me. I kept my promise to her and to him until this moment. Do you see why we can never tell anyone?”
I nod. “I think I do.” I push my weary body from the chair, stare at the drawing once more. “I’ll get this back to you, Mr. Sanchez.”
I say goodbye to his wife and walk out of the house.
All that he told me—the face he has drawn—whirl in my head.
As I reach my Tahoe, my cell vibrates against my side.
I climb behind the wheel as I answer it.
I hope it’s Liv and that she had a better night last night.
I called her before I came to meet with Sanchez, but her cell went straight to voicemail.
I need to see her. To talk to her . . . this idea expanding in my mind can’t be right.
Can’t be. Can’t be.
“Hey, Detective, it’s Reynolds.”
It might be Sunday, but cops don’t have the luxury of being off duty just because it’s the Lord’s Sabbath.
“Hey, Reynolds. You get that other report?”
I start the engine but don’t move. We’ve been waiting on the DNA results on the second blood type found in Fanning’s house. I’m assuming that’s why Reynolds has called. I’m praying it will take this damn theory nagging at me in a whole different direction.
I need it to go a different way.
“Sure did, and you are not going to believe what the lab report says. I’m thinking they got this one mixed up with that case a couple years back when all those cops got injured by that strung-out perp.
You might not remember, but we had to separate out all the blood types, perform DNA tests, it was a real mess. ”
My heart sinks.
“Anyway,” Reynolds goes on, “I’m standing here staring at the lab report on that second blood type from your crime scene, and I’m certain this can’t be right. There has to be a mix-up. Some kind of wacky mistake.”
But I know there’s no mistake.