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“So what are we missing? We have a half-baked sighting from a witness who gave us nondescriptions of the perps and the car. We have no plate number, no physical evidence from the scene — no cigarette butts, no chewing gum, no shell casings, no tread marks. And no freaking ransom note.”
Conklin leaned back in his chair, said to the ceiling, “The perps acted like muscle, not like sexual predators. Shooting Paola within a minute of capturing her? What’s that?”
“It’s like the shooter was itchy. High on crack. Like the job was subbed out to gangbangers. Or Paola was excess baggage, so they offed her. Or she put up a fight and someone panicked,” I said. “But you know, Richie, you’re right. Totally right.”
His chair creaked as he returned it to an upright position.
“We have to turn this investigation on its head. Work on solving Paola Ricci,” I said, planting my hand palm down on the autopsy report. “Even dead, she could lead us to Madison.”
Conklin was putting in a call to the Italian Consulate when Brenda swiveled her chair toward me. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand.
“Lindsay, you’ve got a caller on line four, won’t identify himself. Sounds . . . scary. I asked for a trace.”
I nodded, my heartbeat ticking up a notch. I stabbed the button on the phone console.
“This is Sergeant Boxer.”
“I’m only going to say this once,” said the digitally altered voice that sounded like a frog talking through Bubble Wrap. I signaled to Conklin to pick up on my line.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“Never mind,” said the voice. “Madison Tyler is fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Say something, Maddy.”
Another voice came over the line, breathy, young, broken. “Mommy? Mommy?”
“Madison?” I said into the phone.
The frog voice was back.
“Tell her parents they made a big mistake calling the police. Call off the dogs,” said the caller, “or we’ll hurt Madison. Permanently. If you back off, she’ll stay alive and well, but either way, the Tylers will never see their daughter again.”
And then the phone went dead.
“Hello? Hello?”
I jiggled the hook until I got a dial tone, then I slammed the phone down.
“Brenda, get the Call Center.”
“What was that? ‘They made a big mistake calling the police?” Conklin shouted. “Lindsay, did that little girl sound like Madison?”
“Jesus Christ, I couldn’t tell. I don’t know.”
“What the hell?” Conklin said, hurling a phone book against the wall.
I felt dizzy, physically sick.
Was Madison really fine?
What did it mean that her parents shouldn’t have called the police? Had there been a ransom demand or a phone call that we didn’t know about?
Everyone in the squad room was looking at me, and Jacobi was standing behind me, literally breathing down my neck, when the radio room called back with the result of the phone trace.
The caller had used a no-name cell phone, and the location couldn’t be traced.
