The 6th Target (25 page)

A nineteen-year-old girl had been murdered. The child of a prominent family was missing and presumed dead.

It was a horrible feeling, and everyone in Tracchio’s office took it personally.

“Boxer, lay it out for the chief,” Jacobi instructed.

I gave Jacobi a look that said,
I know what to do, Lieutenant
.

I described what I had as I slapped each of our exhibits down on the desk. First, the copies of the kidnappers’ notes. Next, the photos of three children — Erica Whitten, Madison Tyler, and the unknown boy with the blue-green eyes.

I said, “We don’t know the identity of this little boy. Renfrew says he doesn’t know him, but the child’s picture was inside this ledger of his.”

Rich placed the Queensbury Register on the desk next to two of the Westwood Registers.

I said, “We know the Renfrews ran three consecutive nanny businesses — one in Boston, the one they’re running here, and an earlier service, the Queensbury Registry in Montreal.

“The Montreal police have a cold case,” I continued. “A little boy named André Devereaux was taken from a playground near his home two years ago.
He had a nanny
.”

“She came from the Queensbury Registry?”

“Yes, sir,” said Conklin. “I went over these ledgers. Between the rent, the cost of recruiting and importing girls from overseas, and the office and legal expenses — even with hefty place-ment fees — the Renfrews are
hemorrhaging money
.”

“And yet they keep working at it,” I said. “And you have to wonder why.
Where’s the payoff
?”

Lieutenant Macklin slid a photo printout over to Tracchio.

“This is André Devereaux,” he said of the abducted Canadian child. “He looks to be the same boy as the one whose picture was found inside the Queensbury Register.

“André’s nanny was Britt Osterman, a Swedish citizen. She was employed by the Queensbury Registry. A week after the abduction of André Devereaux, Britt Osterman was found dead in a ditch off a secondary road. Bullet to the head.

“The Queensbury Registry was owned by two Americans, called themselves John and Tina Langer,” Macklin continued. “The Langers disappeared after the Devereaux/Osterman abductions. The Canadian police e-mailed this photo of the Langers.”

Macklin put another laser-print photo on Tracchio’s desk, a man and a woman, white, late forties.

It was an informal snapshot taken at a holiday party. Beautiful room. Carved paneling. Men in dinner suits. Women in cocktail dresses.

Macklin’s finger was pressed against the photo, nailing a brunette woman in her late forties, wearing a low-cut bronze-colored dress. She was leaning against a smiling man, who had his arm around her.

I could only guess at the woman’s identity, but I knew the man. His hair was black, combed straight back. He had a goatee, and he didn’t wear glasses.

But I’d looked into that face only a short time ago, and I knew him.

John Langer was Paul Renfrew.

AT JUST AFTER NOON THAT DAY, Conklin and I were at Uncle’s Café in Chinatown. We’d both ordered the Wednesday special: pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Conklin had made inroads into his potatoes, but I had no appetite for food.

We had a straight-on view through the plate glass across the gloomy street to a row of brick houses and the Westwood Registry.

A pregnant Chinese woman in pigtails refilled our cups of tea. When I looked through the window a nanosecond later, Paul Renfrew, as he was calling himself, was stepping out of his doorway and heading down the front steps.

“Lookit,” I said, tapping Conklin’s plate with my fork. My cell phone rang. It was Pat Noonan.

“Mr. Renfrew said he’s going out for lunch. Coming back in an hour.”

I doubted it.

Renfrew was going to run.

And he had no idea how many eyes were watching him.

Conklin paid the check, and I made calls to Stanford and Jacobi, zipped my jacket over my vest, and watched Renfrew’s peppy march past herbal shops and souvenir stores as he headed toward the corner of Waverly and Clay.

Conklin and I got into our Crown Vic just as Renfrew unlocked the door of his midnight-blue BMW sedan. He looked over his shoulder, then entered his car and headed south.

Dave Stanford and his partner, Heather Thomson, pulled in behind Renfrew when he reached Sacramento Street while Jacobi and Macklin took a northern route toward Broadway. Our walkie-talkies bleeped and chattered as our team members called in their locations and that of the BMW, following, dropping back, weaving into place, and picking up the trail.

My heart was thudding at a good steady rate as we followed Paul Renfrew’s run to wherever the hell he was taking us.

We crossed the Bay Bridge and drove north on Highway 24, finally entering Contra Costa County.

Conklin and I were in the lead car as Renfrew turned off Altarinda Road onto one of the smaller roadways in Orinda — a quiet, upscale town almost hidden within the folds of the surrounding hills.

I heard Jacobi on the car radio, telling the local police we were conducting a surveillance in an ongoing homicide investigation. Macklin requested backup from the state police and then called the Oakland PD and asked for chopper surveillance. The next voice I heard was Stanford’s. He called for the big guns, an FBI response team.

“The SFPD just lost control of the takedown,” I said to Conklin as Renfrew’s BMW slowed, then turned into the driveway of a white multigabled house with blue shutters.

Conklin drove past the house, casual-like.

We made a U-turn at the junction at the end of the road, came back up the street, and nosed our car into a tree-shaded spot across from where Renfrew had parked his blue BMW next to a black Honda minivan.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

That had to be the van used to abduct Madison Tyler and Paola Ricci.

I RAN THE VAN’S PLATES on the car computer. I was thinking ahead to a search warrant, impounding the van, fanning a flame of hope that a speck of Paola Ricci’s blood could be found inside a seam in the van’s upholstery — real evidence to link the Renfrews to the abduction of Paola Ricci and Madison Tyler.

During the next hour, two perimeters were set up: The inner perimeter encircled the gabled house. The outer perimeter sealed off a two-block area around it.

There’d been no activity from the house, making me wonder what was going on inside.
Was Renfrew packing? Destroying records
?

It was almost four in the afternoon when five black SUVs rolled up the road. They parked on the sidewalk, perpendicular to the front of the gabled house.

Dave Stanford walked up to my car window. He handed me a bullhorn. His ponytail had been clipped to FBI standards, and the humor in his blue eyes was gone. Dave wasn’t working undercover anymore.

He said, “We’re calling the shots, Lindsay. But since Renfrew knows you, try getting him to come out of the house.”

Conklin turned the key in the ignition and we rolled out, crossing the street, coming to a stop in front of the Renfrew driveway. We were blocking in both the van and the BMW.

I took the bullhorn and stood behind my open car door. I called out, “
Paul Renfrew
, this is Sergeant Boxer. We have a warrant for your arrest on suspicion of homicide. Please come out slowly with your hands in the air.”

My voice boomed out over the quiet suburban block. Birds took flight, drowning out the flutter of the chopper blades.

Conklin said, “Movement on the second floor.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. My eyes flicked across the face of the house. I saw nothing, but my skin prickled. I could feel a gun pointed at me.

I lifted the bullhorn again — pressed the button.

“Mr. Renfrew, this is your last and best chance. There’s enough artillery aimed at your house to reduce it to rubble. Don’t make us use it.”

The front door cracked open. Renfrew appeared in the shadows. He called out, “
I’m coming out. Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot
!”

I cut a look to my left to see how the FBI response team was reacting. A dozen or more M16 rifles were still aimed at the front door. I knew that on a roof somewhere, maybe a hundred feet away, a sniper had a Remington Model 700 with a high-powered scope trained on Renfrew’s forehead.

“Step outside where we can see you,” I called to the man in the doorway. “Good decision, Mr. Renfrew,” I said. “Now, turn around and
back up
toward the sound of my voice.”

Renfrew was standing under the pediment that defined the entryway to the house. Thirty feet of clipped green lawn stretched between us.

“I can’t do that,” Renfrew said in a weak, almost pleading voice. “If I go out there, she’ll shoot me.”

RENFREW LOOKED FRIGHTENED, and he had reason to be. If he made a wrong move, his life expectancy was something under two seconds.

But he wasn’t afraid of us.

“
Who
wants to shoot you?” I called out.

“My wife, Laura. She’s upstairs with a semiautomatic. I can’t get her to come out. I think she’s going to try to stop me from surrendering.”

This was a bad turn. If we wanted to learn what happened to Madison Tyler, we had to keep Paul Renfrew alive.

“Do
exactly
what I tell you!” I shouted. “Take off your jacket and toss it away from you. . . . Okay. Good. Now turn out your pants pockets.”

The mic on my radio was open so that everyone on our channel could hear me.

“Unbuckle your belt, Mr. Renfrew. And drop your trousers.”

Renfrew shot me a look, but he obeyed. The pants went down, his shirt covering him to the tops of his thighs.

“Now turn around slowly. Three hundred sixty degrees. Hold up your shirt so I can see your waist,” I said as he struggled to comply. “Okay, you can pull up your pants.”

He hurried to do so.

“Now I want you to hoist up your pants legs all the way to your knees.”

“Nice legs for a guy,” Conklin said to me over the roof of the car. “Now let’s get him outta here.”

I nodded, thinking that if the wife charged downstairs, she could blow Renfrew away through the open door.

I told Renfrew to release his pants legs, come out, and hug the wall of the house.

“If you do what I say, she can’t get a bead on you,” I said. “Keep both hands on the walls. Make your way around the south corner of the house. Then lie down. Interlace your hands behind your neck.”

When Renfrew was on the ground, a black Suburban rolled up onto the lawn. Two FBI agents jumped out and cuffed him, patted him down.

They were folding him into the backseat of their vehicle when I heard glass breaking from the second floor of the gabled house.
Oh, shit
.

A woman’s face appeared at the window.

She had a gun in her hand, and it was pressed against the temple of a little girl whose expression was frozen into a slack-mouthed stare.

The little girl was Madison Tyler.

The woman who held her captive was Tina Langer, aka Laura Renfrew, and she looked like a killer. Her face was furrowed with anger, but I didn’t see a trace of fear.

She called out through the window, “The end of the game is the most interesting part, isn’t it, Sergeant Boxer? I want safe passage. Oh, I mean safe passage for me
and
Madison. That helicopter is a good place to start. Someone better give the pilot a ring. Get him to land on the lawn. Do it now. Right now.

“Oh, by the way . . . if anyone makes a move toward me, I’ll shoot this little —”

I saw the black hole appear in her forehead before I heard the echoing crack of the Remington’s report from the rooftop across the street.

Madison screamed as the woman calling herself Laura Renfrew stood framed in the window.

She released the little girl as she fell.

WAS MADISON TYLER ALL RIGHT?
That’s all I was thinking as Conklin and I burst into the front bedroom, second floor. We didn’t see the girl anywhere, though.

“Madison?” I called out, my voice high.

A single unmade bed was against the wall adjacent to the door. An open suitcase was on the bed, with girls’ clothing tossed inside.

“Where are you, honey?” Rich Conklin called out as we approached the closet. “We’re the police.”

We reached the closet at the same time. “Madison, it’s okay, sweetie,” I said, turning the knob. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

I opened the door, saw a pile of clothing on the floor of the closet, moving in time with someone’s breathing.

I stooped down, still afraid of what I might see. “Maddy,” I said, “my name is Lindsay and I’m a policewoman. I’m here to take you home.”

I nudged aside the pile of clothing on the closet floor until I finally saw the little girl. She was whimpering softly, hugging herself, rocking with her eyes closed.

Oh, God, thank you. It was Madison.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, my voice quavering. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Madison opened her eyes, and I reached out my arms to her. She flung herself against me, and I held her tightly, putting my cheek to her hair.

I unclipped my cell phone and dialed a number I’d committed to memory. My hands were shaking so hard I had to try the number again.

My call was answered on the second ring.

“Mrs. Tyler, this is Lindsay Boxer. I’m with Inspector Conklin, and we have Madison.” I put the phone up to Madison’s face, and I whispered, “Say something to your mom.”

EARLY THAT EVENING, Conklin and I were at FBI headquarters on Golden Gate Avenue, thirteenth floor. We sat in a room with fifteen other agents and cops, watching on video monitors as Dave Stanford and his partner, Heather Thomson, interviewed Renfrew.

I sat beside Conklin, watching Stanford and Thomson dissecting the acts of terror committed by Paul Renfrew, aka John Langer, aka David Cornwall, aka
Josef Waller, the name he was given at birth
.