Hocus ik-5 Read online

  Bea introduced Cassidy to the others, her introduction of Bear Bradshaw reminding me that his first name was Gregory. Cassie said, “Cassie is short for Kathryn — perhaps with the two of us in the same house, Detective Cassidy, it would be easier to call me Kathyrn.”

  “Heck, no,” Bear Bradshaw said. “We’ll just call this guy Hopalong.”

  Bea and Bear enjoyed it, but the rest of us just looked at Cassidy in sympathy. He didn’t seem in the least bothered by it. “You could all just call me Tom,” he said.

  “Actually, I prefer Kathryn,” my sister-in-law said. “Only the family and certain untrainable old coots insist on calling me by my childhood name.”

  “You never told me—” I began.

  “I never told you, because you’re part of the family,” she said with a quick reproachful glance at her mother. “Now, would either of you like some hot coffee?”

  We both said yes, and she went off to the kitchen to make a fresh pot. Cassidy asked Bea if he could talk to her alone for a moment.

  I glanced at my watch. Eighteen minutes before five o’clock. I moved closer to the phone, which was near Bear Bradshaw, on a table full of knickknacks. Bea was a big believer in knickknacks.

  “I wondered if you were going to come over here and say hello to me,” Bradshaw said. “I’ve just had knee surgery, or I’d get up and greet you properly.”

  “Sorry, Bear. I hadn’t noticed the cane. Are you doing okay?”

  “Fine, I’ll be fine. Just need to baby it a little while it heals. It’s a typical cop’s problem, I guess. Getting in and out of the car all day is hard on the knees, they tell me. But never mind my puny little problems. How are you holding up?”

  “My problems are puny, too. Frank’s the one to worry over.”

  “Frank? No, the boy will be all right. I keep telling Bea, Frank has a good head on his shoulders. Just like his dad did. But Frank’s even smarter than Brian was. He’ll be okay.”

  I didn’t bother arguing with him, because every word was said as if he wanted to reassure himself.

  “You go back a long way with the Harrimans, don’t you, Bear?” Mike asked.

  “You betcha. Brian was one of my best friends. After my first wife left me, Brian always included me in his family’s holiday get-togethers — you know, so I wouldn’t be alone.”

  “You remarried?” I asked.

  “Yes, I guess we have a lot of catching up to do. I’m a widower now. My second wife died about a year ago. But I hear my matchmaking finally paid off.”

  “Your matchmaking?” Mike asked.

  Bradshaw grinned at me. “With you and Frank, Irene. Remember?”

  “Well, I guess you did get Frank to start talking to me.”

  He laughed. “Oh, that was priceless! He’s always been quiet, but not the tongue-tied type, you know? But when he saw you — oh, God! First night, I kept waiting for him to say something, but not a word until we got back in the car. Then he’s grilling me. Wanted to know all about you. Now, I’ve known the boy since he was born. I’d never seen him act like that before. So I made a little wager with Cookie. Couple of times there, I thought I’d lost my money.”

  “You bet that Frank and I would get married?”

  “Yes, I did! Cookie said the boy would never marry a reporter, that the boy knew better than that. And damned if the SOB didn’t run around behind my back and load Frank up with a lot of crap about how cops and reporters should never fraternize, and so on. Well, it’s true, but you two were the exception, and Cookie has just never learned that there are exceptions in life.”

  I looked at my watch. Five minutes to go.

  “Sorry, guess I’m boring you.”

  “Oh, no, Bear! Not at all. The call. I’m just worried about the call.”

  “What call?” Mike asked.

  “Hocus — the ones who have Frank. They told me they’d call me here at five.”

  Bradshaw lost all color in his face. For an awful moment I thought he was going to pass out. Mike rushed over to him, but just as suddenly the Bear seemed to pull himself together. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, still shaken. “Damn, you don’t need that, Irene…. Bea — I’ve got to talk to Bea….” He began to lever himself up from the chair.

  Over Bradshaw’s growling protests, Mike helped him to his feet, but before he could move forward, Bea and Cassidy came back into the room. Voices rose together. Cassidy calling my name; Bea saying, “Oh, Greg!” and Bradshaw saying, “Here, now,” as he reached out to her with his free hand; Mike trying to respond to his wife’s, “What’s wrong?” as she came into the room carrying coffee.

  The phone rang. We reacted in the way a man walking through the desert alone reacts when he hears a rattle. We all stood stock still, silent.

  It rang again, and Cassidy said, “Irene, come with me. The rest of you stay out here.”

  I followed him as he all but ran to one of the bedrooms, where he had set up the recorder and a telephone headset that would allow him to listen in. Between us were two pads of paper and pens for scribbling notes.

  On the third ring, as Cassidy nodded and turned on the recorder, I picked up the phone.

  “What happened, Ms. Kelly?” the voice on the other end teased. “Did Detective Cassidy run out of tape cassettes?”

  “You know I’m at my mother-in-law’s house,” I answered. Speak slowly, I reminded myself, trying to follow Cassidy’s instructions. “There are other people here. I didn’t know how private you wanted this conversation to be.”

  I scribbled a note to Cassidy: “Different caller.”

  Cassidy nodded.

  “Oh, there is no privacy for people in our position,” the caller said.

  “Your position?”

  “Hocus is quite famous now. We’re almost as famous now as we were when we were little. Our fathers’ murders bought us our first fifteen minutes of fame.”

  Show empathy.“You survived a horrible ordeal then. People wanted to know more about you.”

  “Good! You did your homework. We’re very pleased.”

  “Am I speaking to Samuel or Bret?”

  “Samuel, at the moment. Our fathers enjoyed stories about the Old West. Bret is named for Bret Harte. I’m named for Samuel Clemens. Detective Cassidy, you do know Samuel Clemens was the man who wrote as Mark Twain, don’t you?”

  Cassidy pulled the small microphone on the headset down to his mouth. “Well, Samuel, contrary to Yankee propaganda, there are a few literate folks living south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

  Samuel Ryan laughed; a false, nervous laugh. “What a wit, Thomas! You don’t mind if I call you Thomas, do you?”

  “Not at all. Tom would be better. You prefer Samuel or Sam?”

  “Samuel, please. And Ms. Kelly, would it seem disrespectful if I addressed you as Irene?”

  “I’d prefer it to Ms. Kelly.”

  “Fine. We really think the two of you are well suited for the task we have in mind. Tom is a virtual tower of equanimity. You are so lucky to have him along for the ride, aren’t you, Irene?”

  “Forgive me if I say I’d rather not be on the ride in the first place.”

  Cassidy shot me a warning look, but Samuel laughed again.

  “Well, I’d love to sit here and chat,” Samuel said, “but that would lead to Detective Harriman being even more uncomfortable than he is now.”

  “Uncomfortable?” Cassidy asked.

  “The drugs, the restraints. Being without his own clothes. And of course, as the drugs wear off, there is pain.”

  My eyes widened. Cassidy held up a hand, motioning me not to talk, obviously aware that I couldn’t speak with anything resembling composure. But in the same tone of voice in which anyone else might have said, “Read the funny papers yet?” Cassidy said, “Last time, Bret did mention that Frank was injured.”

  “You didn’t expect him to come along peacefully, did you?” Samuel said defensively. “It’s his own fault. He fought us, and he got hurt. But h
e has received medical attention.”

  “He has?”

  “Yes. I stitched up his head myself.”

  Visions of infections and fevers and insane medical experiments tumbled through my mind, while the silence stretched. Cassidy had warned me not to be afraid of those silences, but I had not anticipated the course my imagination would take while we waited.

  Yet it was Cassidy who broke this silence as he drawled, “You a medical man, Samuel?”

  “You’ve probably already got a whole team of people working on my history and credentials,” Samuel said, “so let’s not waste Detective Harriman’s time. I’ve been on this call far too long. Bret will be quite upset with me. Everything else you need to know is waiting at a copy shop near Cal State Bakersfield.” He gave an address on Stockdale Highway, then added, “It’s a twenty-four-hour place. Ask for your fax and mail.”

  “Can you give us directions, Samuel?” Cassidy asked. “Irene hasn’t been here for a while, and she’s already managed to get us lost twice.”

  “Not my problem. You found your way eventually, didn’t you?” he said. “Now, on to business. The reports in the Californian are fairly accurate. Wrong in a few places, though. For example, you know that a young officer — our very own Officer Harriman — rescued us from a warehouse. Now here’s the problem: How did Officer Harriman know to go to that particular warehouse?”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Samuel,” Cassidy said.

  “Who told Officer Harriman to go to the warehouse?”

  “A dispatcher,” I answered.

  “Yes, but who told the dispatcher about the warehouse?”

  “According to the article, an anonymous tipster,” I said.

  “Ah! That’s where the article is wrong. Not the fault of the reporter. That’s what the dispatcher told him.”

  “You believe the dispatcher lied?”

  “Maybe. But I think it’s far more likely that she knew — well, knew but didn’t know — the caller.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t understand.”

  Silence.

  “Knew but didn’t know,” I finally repeated. “Didn’t recognize the voice?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Whose voice was it?” Cassidy asked.

  “More fun if you guess,” Samuel said.

  Don’t make this into a game! I wanted to shout, but Cassidy simply said, “All right. Was it a relative?”

  “No.”

  “Someone she worked with,” I said, trying to follow Cassidy’s lead.

  “Getting warmer,” Samuel enthused.

  “A cop,” I guessed.

  “Yes! I knew you could do this job, Irene.”

  “This job?”

  “You’ll have until Tuesday.”

  “I’ll have until Tuesday to do what?”

  “Why, to find that cop.”

  “Which cop? What’s his name?” I asked, feeling panic closing in.

  “Irene, if we knew that, we wouldn’t have needed to go to so much bother. That’s why we need you.”

  “You know the caller was a cop?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “What do you mean? How can you be certain?”

  Cassidy pushed a note toward me: “Slow down.”

  “We were there, remember?” Samuel said. “But that isn’t much of an explanation, is it? No, you’ll need more details if you’re going to give us his name by Tuesday. Well, read the fax. Now, this really has gone on too long.”

  “Wait! Why Tuesday?”

  “No special reason,” he said. “But we can’t be expected to take care of Detective Harriman forever.”

  “You’ve started all of this over a weekend,” Cassidy said, his tone of voice much more level than mine. “Of course that presents some difficulties.”

  “Nothing insurmountable.”

  “Folks go out of town on weekends. Offices are closed. And this all goes back a ways.”

  “Years,” Samuel said bitterly.

  “Yes. You’ve waited a long time to learn this officer’s identity. What difference would a few more days make?”

  Silence.

  We waited.

  “Perhaps we will be flexible, Tom. Perhaps not. You’ll just have to see how we feel on Tuesday.”

  “I just figured you’d want her to be sure she had identified the right man.”

  “How would you know what we want, Tom?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” Cassidy asked, but we could already hear the drone of the dial tone.

  16

  “YOU DID FINE,” Cassidy said. “You let him get your goat a couple of times, but that’s what he was aiming to do.” He paused, then said, “They’re a little unusual. They’ve studied the Las Piernas Police Department.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His cellular phone rang before he could reply. He answered the call, listened for a moment, and said, “Well, it will be helpful whenever it does come through. Thank you…. Yes, we may be receiving other calls here.”

  He hung up and said, “That was Bakersfield PD. The phone company says it’s going to be at least a couple of hours before they can get back to us with the trace. The call came from out of the local area. That’s no surprise. He talked too long — he was probably fairly sure it would take us a while to trace it.”

  He explained that a telephone call made within a local area could be traced fairly rapidly; but a call made from outside areas, or one that crossed phone company service areas, might take much longer to trap — two days or more.

  “So at least one of them — Samuel — isn’t in Bakersfield.”

  “Right.”

  “And they don’t seem to have anyone following us around, or he would have picked up on your lie about getting lost.”

  He smiled. “Right again.”

  “You took a chance there, didn’t you?”

  “Not much of one. I was more worried that you’d get angry and deny it than I was that he’d make a fuss over it.”

  “Now you’re trying to make me angry. What were you saying before — about Hocus studying the department?”

  “They’ve got all kinds of information that takers don’t usually have. They were expecting me to be here with you. They’ve done some research on how our department handles these situations, who they send out for crisis negotiation.”

  “You don’t like that, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Not the way I’d prefer it to be, but not the end of the world.”

  I looked toward the door. “I guess I’d better let the others know what’s happening before we go to pick up that fax.”

  “Hold up a minute,” he said. “I’d like you to listen to the tape while I play it for Hank. Sometimes, the second time through, you learn things, pick up on things you missed while you were feeling the pressure. Just let me make a couple of quick calls, then we can go and talk to the family together.”

  He called Captain Bredloe, gave him a synopsis of the call, mentioned I was still in the room with him. After a brief pause he said, “Yes, sir. I’ll call back a little later.” He then called Henry Freeman, told him he would have a modem set up soon and would be sending a report for Freeman to distribute. He played the tape, and I tried to learn from his part of the conversation while wincing over my own mistakes. He was right about the second time through, though.

  “I noticed something,” I said when he finished his call. “They wanted to call us by our first names, but they keep calling Frank ‘Detective Harriman.’ They aren’t — what do you call that? When the hostages and hostage takers bond with one another, start to worry about each other—”

  “Stockholming,” he said. “Or Stockholm syndrome. Gets its name from an incident in Sweden. Some hostages were held for six days in a bank vault by two escaped convicts. When they were released and the takers were arrested, police there noticed something kind of odd — both the takers and the hostages had developed a kind of sympathy and affection for one another.
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  “Hard to say why it happens,” he went on. “Maybe it’s because of the dependency of the hostages on the takers; others say that under stressful conditions, as time passes, the hostages and the takers are more likely to begin to see each other as individual human beings.”

  “So you’re saying it’s too soon for Samuel and Bret to form that kind of bond with Frank, then?”

  “It may not happen at all. I’d warn you not to count on it happening here.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s been a lot of publicity about Stockholming, especially since the Hearst case, so people mistakenly believe the Stockholm syndrome is a given. It’s not.”

  “But you seem especially doubtful about it in this case,” I pressed.

  He sighed. “Like I said before, these takers know who goes out on a crisis call in Las Piernas. They know how long it takes to trace a phone call. We have many examples that show they are intelligent and that they plan ahead. My guess is they know all about the Stockholm syndrome. They’ll do their best not to succumb to it — you can see signs of it already. Calling him ‘Detective Harriman’ instead of ‘Frank’ — that will help them keep some emotional distance.”

  “But how can they have emotional distance from the man who saved them from that cellar?”

  “How could they injure him?” Cassidy countered.

  “How could they put their ‘hero’ in the trunk of a car? Drug him? Use him as a pawn? Do any of the other things they may have done to him?”

  “It has something to do with his being a cop, doesn’t it? They have some problem with cops.”

  “Maybe.”

  “They never once mentioned Lang and Colson. Never once proposed an exchange.”

  “No, they didn’t. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. They don’t seem to want an exchange, but they do want me to find a Bakersfield cop who made an anonymous phone call to a dispatcher. Why?”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me, either,” Cassidy said.

  “If an officer made the call, there was no reason for him not to identify himself to the dispatcher.”

  After a moment’s thought I said, “But if a cop did make the call to the dispatcher, he had to know that something was going on at the warehouse.”