Bloodlines (48 page)

He lasted five minutes before he passed out cold again.

**CHAPTER 48

FORTY MINUTES AFTER THEY HAD DISCOVERED THE ROOM WITH THE bloodstains, Lefebvre and the rest of the LPPD were making every effort to find Max and Irene. O'Connor tried--and failed--to comfort himself with that thought.

The "be on the lookout" order for what Lefebvre had since admitted to him was Eric Yeager's black BMW had been expanded to all local jurisdictions--an all-points bulletin saying that Eric and Ian Yeager were wanted for questioning in connection with an assault and kidnapping.

The crime lab team was at work on the shoe print, bloodstains, latent prints, and other forms of evidence from the scene.

Matt Arden was on his way, with another detective, to talk to Mitch Yeager. When O'Connor asked Lefebvre if Arden would have the balls to pressure Yeager, Lefebvre laughed. "Matt? He's wanted to have a go at Yeager for a long time now."

"Why?"

"You think you're the only one who believes Mr. Yeager isn't as respectable as he'd like everyone to believe? Besides, Eric and Ian have been thumbing their noses at the department for years. Skating just so close, just managing to keep clear of an arrest."

"Paid-off witnesses and the like. No need to tell me."

"You can trust Matt. He's good at interrogation, you know."

"I hear you're better."

"I learned from him, that's all." One of the uniformed officers came up to him just then and said that Haycroft from the lab wanted to show them something in the basement. "Do you know Paul Haycroft?" Lefebvre asked O'Connor. "He does excellent work with blood spatter patterns."

Haycroft theorized that one of the victims had received a blow from behind in the room upstairs and had fallen forward and injured his face. "A guess based on the cast-off blood on the walls and on the ceiling by the door, and from some of the staining on the floor. At least one of your attackers will have flecks of the victim's blood on his clothing. I'll want to study it more carefully, but I can't immediately see signs of more than one person being attacked in that way."

"Probably Max," O'Connor said. "He was here before Irene arrived."

"Yes," Haycroft said. "It's possible she found him after he was injured and used the jacket to stop the bleeding--the pattern of staining on the jacket indicates it was bunched up and held to a wound. The stains are on the outside, not on the lining. If she was wearing it and had been, say, stabbed or shot, the wound would bleed from the lining to the outside. And the staining is not consistent with, say, a wound to the head bleeding down onto the collar and back."

Seeing O'Connor's relief, he added, "I'll know more when we do more tests, but Ms. Kelly's father told us that her blood type is A, and all we have found so far is type O. According to Lillian Linworth, that's Mr. Ducane's blood type. The bleeding had nearly stopped by the time the victim was carried down the hallway and stairs. But what I want to show you, Detective, are small spots on the stairs leading to the basement."

In the basement, the spots of blood ended at the bottom of the stairs. O'Connor began to explore, looking carefully at the walls, which were covered with cheap paneling.

"What are you looking for?" Lefebvre asked.

"This is the bootlegger's house, remember? Somewhere along here, we might find an entrance to a passageway."

"Why would it be hidden? I thought the locals claimed to have legitimate uses for those tunnels to the sea."

"Most of the owners sealed them off years ago--in the early 1960s, a gang of thieves figured out that the passageways allowed easy access to and from some of the wealthiest households in Las Piernas. That and the possibility of homeless people camping in them put an end to most of the tunnels."

"But if the entrance was used this evening, we should see signs of it, don't you think?"

"Maybe. Or maybe they took the time to seal it up again."

Together they knocked on the walls, listening for some sign of a hollow space behind them.

A uniformed officer came down the basement stairs and drew Lefebvre aside. Lefebvre spoke briefly with him, then the officer hurried back upstairs.

"What was that all about?" O'Connor asked.

"They've taken the Yeager brothers into custody."

"Have they said anything about Max and Irene?"

"So far, no. They were apprehended at LAX. They're being brought back here, with their car. Let's keep looking."

They looked beyond the finished area of the basement. O'Connor searched through the storage room, but the walls in it and the laundry room were unfinished. Lefebvre had just followed O'Connor to the laundry room-- which held an old washer and dryer, a large water heater cabinet, and a fold- down ironing board--when something occurred to him.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Why would one old man need two laundry rooms?"

Lefebvre frowned. "Yes--you're right--there's a newer washer and dryer upstairs." He walked over to the water heater cabinet. "And why would he need two water heaters?"

He opened the cabinet. It was empty. The back wall of the cabinet was a narrow metal door, sealed by a thick steel bar, which was held in place by three heavy padlocks. New padlocks.

Lefebvre banged the end of his flashlight on the door. "Irene! Max!" They listened, but heard no response. Lefebvre called to one of the uniformed officers and instructed him to keep tapping at the door.

"Let's try to find the other end of it," he said to O'Connor.

They met Haycroft on the way out. Two uniformed officers would wait for him to look for fingerprints, then work with bolt cutters to remove the locks. "I'll have my radio with me--call me the moment you're through that door. Oh--see if we can get someone from the beach patrol to meet us down at the bluffs."

On the way out, he asked another uniformed officer to cross the street and walk to the railing at the top of the bluffs. "Stand directly across from the house. Use your flashlight to signal me toward your location when we're on the beach."

The beach patrol received the message and met them with a Jeep at the bottom of the public stairway that led from a nearby parking lot down to the beach. They drove until they saw the signal made by the officer at the top of the bluffs.

"Now what, sir?" the driver asked Lefebvre.

"Let us out. Keep your headlights on the section of the bluffs just below where that officer stands."

O'Connor and Lefebvre hurried toward the vine-covered section of the bluffs.

"All this bougainvillea," O'Connor said. "We'll never see an opening through it."

"Irene!" Lefebvre called. "Max!"

They listened. The tide was coming in, but over the pounding of the surf, O'Connor swore he heard a voice.

Lefebvre had heard it, too. "Keep calling to us!"

It was a faint sound, nearly lost in the wind. Try as he might, he could not find its source.

Suddenly, O'Connor saw a flash of white. "There!" he cried, pointing a few yards away. "Near the ground. She's signaling us."

"What in God's name is that?" Lefebvre asked.

"If I'm not mistaken," O'Connor said, "it's her blouse."

**CHAPTER 49

I FELT MIXED EMOTIONS AS I WATCHED THE AMBULANCE LEAVE. I WAS relieved to know Max would be getting medical attention, but I felt as if I were abandoning him, even though it was I who stayed behind.

Lefebvre and O'Connor had waited patiently on the beach, talking with me and relaying information I gave them about Max's condition to the paramedics, while our rescuers worked to break in through the other end of the tunnel. They brought lights, water, and a stretcher for Max. I had my blouse back on, but I was still cold, so I was grateful for the blanket they gave me to wrap around my shoulders. Eventually someone found a way to bring me a cup of hot coffee.

I felt really bad about not being able to give much of a description of my assailants, but Lefebvre assured me that they would be caught whether I had seen them or not. I was starting to feel shaken, now that the main emergency was over and someone else was in charge, but Lefebvre's steadiness reached me, kept me from giving in to an urge to fall apart.

Lefebvre was watching me and said, "O'Connor put a big dent in your car."

"What?" Outrage snapped me out of fear into anger.

"For the Lord's sake," O'Connor said, "you're as full as you can hold, Lefebvre. Making it sound as if I hit it with a sledgehammer."

"I told you she'd be mad," Lefebvre said, but by then I had seen that glint of amusement in his eye, and caught on to his game.

"I'll be all right," I said.

"Do you have any guesses who might have attacked you?" Lefebvre asked.

"Eric Yeager," I said without hesitation. "I suppose his brother might have been the other one."

He exchanged a look with O'Connor and asked me why. I told him about our encounter with Eric at the Cliffside.

O'Connor was outraged that I hadn't told him about that. I had the pleasure of hearing Lefebvre tell him to lay off.

Lefebvre said some objects had been found near the basement entrance of the tunnel. "Including a long-handled flashlight that looks as if it was used to hit Max."

"Like the flashlight that might have been used to hit Katy Ducane?" I asked.

Lefebvre said, "The thought has occurred to me that it might be a familiar method for Max's attacker."

"But they wore gloves today, right?" O'Connor said. "Probably no fingerprints on it."

"Probably not," I said, then remembered my own flashlight. "Wait--the batteries! They might have worn gloves today, but I'll bet they touched the batteries in their flashlight with bare fingers!"

"That would be the natural thing to do," Lefebvre conceded. He called to one of the men from the lab and asked him to check for fingerprints on the batteries in the flashlight used to strike Max.

"And on the one left in the buried car," I said.

The lab man looked from me to Lefebvre.

"It's worth a try," Lefebvre said.

Eventually, I was told I could go home. O'Connor walked me to the Karmann Ghia.

"I'll pay for any damage I did to your car," he said.

"Don't be an idiot. There is no damage, and besides, I owe you big time."

"I'll follow you home," he said.

I didn't object. In fact, I thanked him.

**CHAPTER 50

ERIC AND IAN HAD BEEN CAUGHT TRYING TO FLEE THE COUNTRY WITH large amounts of cash and false passports in their possession. That gave the police enough reason to take them into custody, and later, it helped to ensure that bail was set astronomically high. Mitch Yeager paid it, but it took him a couple of days to do it.

Lefebvre's case against them for their assault and kidnapping of Max and me began with fingerprints found on the batteries, but was supported by other evidence. They literally had a trunkful of it. The end of a roll of duct tape found in the trunk of the car was compared microscopically with the ends of the pieces of tape used to bind and gag us--they matched. There was blood matching Max's blood type on gloves found in the trunk and on clothing stashed there as well. My flashlight, with my fingerprints on my new batteries, was also in the trunk of the BMW. And sensitive chemical tests showed traces of chloroform on one of Eric's gloves.

The note about the doorbell being broken was found wadded up in their trunk. The questioned documents expert in the Las Piernas lab was also able to match the perforated edge of the note about Warren Ducane with the edges left behind in a spiral-bound notebook in the car, as well as handwriting characteristics in the printing, and the ink type in a fancy pen carried by Ian.

There was trace evidence as well--hair and fibers found in the room where we were attacked matched samples taken from Eric and Ian, and strands of our hair and fibers from our clothes were found on theirs. The photos Stephen Gerard took, and his testimony about the places and times he had seen the BMW, convinced the jury that Eric had planned my kidnapping for some time.

Together with testimony from Max and me, they were convicted.

Eric and Ian Yeager were each sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

Max, O'Connor, and I went drinking with the boys from the newsroom. The events in the Baer mansion seemed to have moved my status on the staff from that of outsider to team member--they closed ranks when they heard that one of their own had been attacked. That didn't stop several of them from asking me, from time to time, to take my blouse off and demonstrate how I had signaled for help, but their regard for me seemed to outlast the joke.

The Express had covered the story from one angle or another for almost a year by the time the Yeager brothers were sentenced, and nearly everyone on the news staff had worked on some related story. Time to celebrate.

The victory was bittersweet, though, because that was the Yeager brothers' second trial.

The first one, for the murders of the Ducanes, ended in a mistrial, with a hung jury. Although Lefebvre was clearly a genius at interrogation, the confessions obtained were ruled as inadmissible in pretrial--the Yeager brothers' lawyers claimed their clients were not properly Mirandized when taken into custody in Los Angeles. If there had been no other evidence, I suppose I would have understood the holdout juror's reluctance, but there was plenty of other proof of their guilt.