The Big Bad Wolf

EVERYTHING WAS SUDDENLY in a hurry-up mode. After we landed I was driven in a van to the Phipps Plaza shopping center in Buckhead. As we pulled into the lot off Peachtree, it was obvious to me that something was very wrong there. We passed the anchor stores: Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord amp; Taylor. They were nearly empty. Agent Walsh told me that the victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly, had been abducted in the underground parking lot near another large store called Parisian. The entire parking area was a crime scene, but particularly Level 3, where Mrs. Connolly had been grabbed. Each level of the garage was marked with a purple-and-gold scroll design, but now crime-scene tape was draped over the scrolls. The Bureau's Evidence Response Team was there. The incredible amount of activity indicated that the local police agencies were taking this extremely seriously. Walsh's words were floating in my head: She isn't the first. It struck me as a little ironic, but I was more comfortable talking to the local police than to agents from the Bureau's field office. I walked over and spoke to two detectives, Pedi and Ciaccio, from the Atlanta PD. "I'll try to stay out of your way," I said to them, then added, "I used to be Washington PD." "Sold out, huh?" Ciaccio said, and she sniffed out a laugh. It was supposed to be a joke, but it had enough truth in it to sting. Her eyes had a light frost in them. Pedi spoke up. He looked about ten years older than his partner. Both were attractive. "Why's the FBI interested in this case?" I told them only as much as I thought I should, not everything. "There have been other abductions, or at least disappearances, that resemble this one. White women, suburban locales. We're here checking into possible connections. And, of course, this is a judge's wife." Pedi asked, "Are we talking about past disappearances in the Atlanta metro area?" I shook my head. "No, not to my knowledge. The other disappearances are in Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Arkansas." "Ransoms involved?" Pedi followed up. "In one Texas case, yes. Otherwise no money has been asked for. None of the women have been found so far." "Only white women?" Detective Ciaccio asked as she took a few notes. "As far as we know, yes. And all of them fairly well-to-do. But no ransoms. And none of what I'm telling you gets to the press." I looked around the parking garage. "What do we have so far? Help me out a little." Ciaccio looked at Pedi. "Joshua?" she asked. Pedi shrugged. "All right, Irene." "We do have something. There were a couple of kids in one of the parked cars when the abduction went down. They didn't witness the first part of the crime." "They were otherwise occupied," said Joshua Pedi. "But they looked up when they heard a scream and saw Elizabeth Connolly. Two kidnappers, apparently pretty good at it. Man and a woman. They didn't see our young lovers because they were in the back of a van." "And they had their heads down?" I asked. "Otherwise occupied?" "That too. But when they did come up for air, they saw the man and woman, described as being in their thirties, well-dressed. They were already holding Mrs. Connolly. Took her down very fast. Threw her into the back of her own station wagon. Then they drove off in her car." "Why didn't the kids get out of the van to help?" Ciaccio shook her head. "They said that it happened very fast, and that they were scared. Seemed 'unreal' to them. I think they were also nervous about having it known they were playing around in the back of a van during school hours. They both attend a local prep school in Buckhead. They were skipping classes." A team took her, I thought, and knew it was a big break for us. According to what I'd read on the ride down, no team had been spotted at any of the other abductions. A male and a female team? That was interesting. Strange and unexpected. "You want to answer a question for us now?" Detective Pedi asked. "If I can. Shoot." He looked at his partner. I had a feeling that somewhere along the way Joshua and Irene might have spent some time in the backseat of a car, something about the way they looked at each other. "We've been hearing that this might have to do with the Sandra Friedlander case. Is that right? That one's gone unsolved for, what, two years in D.C.?" I looked at the detective and shook my head. "Not to my knowledge," I said. "You're the first to bring up Sandra Friedlander." Which wasn't exactly the truth. Her name had been in confidential FBI reports I'd read on the ride down from D.C. Sandra Friedlander - and seven others.