He liked the flush of Junior Detective excitement on her face, and wished he didn’t have to dampen it. “It wouldn’t prove anything, hon. Howie Gold would tell the jury they couldn’t convict anyone on the absence of prints, and he’d be right.”
She considered this. “Okay, but I still think you should gather prints from that room, and identify as many as possible. Can you do that?”
“Yes. And it’s a good idea.” It was at least another t to cross. “I’ll find out which room it was, and try to have the Sheraton move out whoever is in there now. I think they’ll cooperate, given the play this is going to have in the media. We’ll dust it top to bottom and side to side. But what I really want is to see the security footage from the days that convention was in session, and since Detective Sablo—he’s the State Police’s lead on this—won’t be back until later today, I’m going to take a run up there myself. I’ll be hours behind Gold’s investigator, but that can’t be helped.”
She put a hand over his. “Just promise me you’ll stop every once in a while and acknowledge the day, honey. It’s the only one you’ll have until tomorrow.”
He smiled at her, squeezed her hand, then let go. “I keep thinking about the vehicles he used, the one he used to kidnap the Peterson boy and the one he left town in.”
“The Econoline van and the Subaru.”
“Uh-huh. The Subaru doesn’t bother me much. That one was a straight steal from a municipal parking lot, and we’ve seen plenty of similar thefts since 2012 or so. The new keyless ignitions are the car thief’s best friend, because when you stop somewhere, thinking about whatever errands you have to run or what you’re going to put on for supper, you don’t see your keys dangling from the ignition. It’s easy to leave the electronic fob behind, especially if you’re wearing earbuds or yakking on your phone, and don’t hear the car chiming at you to take them. The Subaru’s owner—Barbara Nearing—left her fob in the cup holder and the parking ticket on the dashboard when she went to work at eight. Car was gone when she came back at five.”
“The attendant doesn’t remember who drove it out?”
“No, and that’s not surprising. It’s a big garage, five levels, there are people coming and going all the time. There’s a camera at the exit, but the footage gets wiped every forty-eight hours. The van, though . . .”
“What about the van?”
“It belonged to a part-time carpenter and handyman named Carl Jellison, who lives in Spuytenkill, New York, a little town between Poughkeepsie and New Paltz. He took his keys, but there was a spare in a little magnetic box under the rear bumper. Someone found the box and drove the van away. Bill Samuels’s theory is that the thief drove it from mid-state New York to Cap City . . . or Dubrow . . . or maybe right here to FC . . . and then left it with that spare key still in the ignition. Terry found it, re-stole it, and stashed it somewhere. Maybe in a barn or shed outside of town. God knows there are plenty of abandoned farms since everything went blooey in 2008. He ditched the van behind Shorty’s Pub with the key still in it, hoping—not unreasonably—that someone would steal it a third time.”
“Only no one did,” Jeannie said. “So you have the van in impound, and you have the key. Which has a Terry Maitland thumbprint on it.”
Ralph nodded. “We actually have a ton of prints. That thing’s ten years old and hasn’t been cleaned for at least the last five, if ever. Some of the prints we’ve eliminated—Jellison, his son, his wife, two guys who worked for him. Had those by Thursday afternoon, courtesy of the New York State Police, and God bless them. Some states, most states, we’d still be waiting. We’ve also got Terry Maitland’s and Frank Peterson’s, of course. Four of Peterson’s were on the inside of the passenger door. That’s a greasy area, and they’re as clear as fresh-minted pennies. I’m thinking those were made in the Figgis Park parking lot, when Terry was trying to pull him out of the passenger seat and the kid was trying to resist.”
Jeannie winced.
“There are others from the van we’re still waiting on; they’ve been out on the wire since last Wednesday. We may get hits, we may not. We assume some of them belong to the original car thief, up in Spuytenkill. The others could belong to anyone from friends of Jellison’s to hitchhikers the car thief picked up. But the freshest ones, other than the boy’s, are Maitland’s. The original thief doesn’t matter, but I would like to know where he dumped the van.” He paused, then added, “It makes no sense, you know.”