Page 73 of Dirty Looks

“Two vehicles, tracking her like a dog and closing in on her, until they’re close enough for the ground game. He catches her and she still puts up a fight. Clawing, scratching, kicking. Enough so that he doesn’t even notice when his baseball cap flies off to be found by the crime-scene techs the next day.”

“Oh, hell,” Martinez said, the lightbulb coming on.

“I still haven’t found a match for that logo,” Doug said. “It’s not registered. Could be any mom-and-pop shop on the internet.”

“It’s not,” Jack said. “Look up the private practice of Dr. Peter Bancroft.”

“I know that name,” Doug said. “He’s on my list of searches but is low probability.”

“Look him up,” Jack insisted. “And have Margot screen share everything with Martinez’s laptop.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Doug said. “On it.”

The website for Peace of Mind Psychotherapy came up. And there in the top right corner next to a picture of Peter Bancroft were the three intertwined triangles—the same triangles that were on the hat recovered from the scene.

“He’s a perfect candidate,” Jack said. “Both of them are. She’s the head of an all-girls school, and he’s the school psychologist.They’d have access to everyone’s personal records and home life. There are girls who live on campus full-time, away from their parents. And he’d know which ones would be susceptible and stay quiet. We’ll get a warrant to get access to school records and any parent or student complaints.

“Martinez, why don’t you find a judge to get us a warrant and then get in touch with DC Metro and see if they’ll send a couple of officers over to the Bancroft residence and to his practice just to make sure they don’t disappear.”

“My pleasure,” Martinez said and took his phone out and stepped out of the room to make the calls.

“Doug, how fast can you hack into the Dolley Madison School for Girls computer system?” Jack asked. “I want to know about any internal complaints. Anything suspicious that might pile on the charges for our friends.”

What Doug was capable of doing with a computer was not exactly within the law. We were going to get our warrant, so we’d have the information one way or another, but it was best that Martinez didn’t have knowledge of what Jack was asking Doug to do.

“I got in before you finished saying the word warrant,” Doug said and then he started muttering to himself. “Disciplinary actions, expelled students, teacher complaints…” He whistled tunelessly. “Petty theft. Lots of drugs confiscated. Some minor assaults. Rich girls are wild, man. Who knew?

“Ahh, here we go,” Doug said. “Here’s some good stuff. Abigail Dresden. Age fifteen. Disappeared from her dorm last November. It was first reported to campus security, and then the city cops. According to the school psychologist Abigail was dealing with depression, and she was on academic probation for cheating. He said she’d mentioned in one of her sessions that she wanted to run away from it all. Cops eventually declared her a runaway. She’s still a missing person.”

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Jack said, keeping an eye on the door for Martinez. “What else?”

“They’ve got locked files,” Doug said, clicking his tongue. “Looks like the only person who has access is the head of school. They’ve got their own campus police department. Looks like they’ve been through four chiefs of police in the last seven years. A seventeen-year-old student filed a formal complaint against Peter Bancroft, saying he sexually assaulted her during a mandatory counseling session. Campus police brought the complaint to the head of school, as is policy, and Dr. Bancroft denied all allegations, saying the student suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. He claimed she became outraged when he didn’t reciprocate her advances and she told him she would do everything in her power to discredit him and ruin his career.”

“Convenient,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess the police chief thought so too. His contract wasn’t renewed for the following year, and the girl ended up transferring to a different school for her senior year. Couple of other similar cases. Same MO and different police chief each time. Then three years ago another fifteen-year-old was found off campus. She’s been beaten and raped. She was the daughter of one of those wacko A-list actors who’s always shilling themselves for politicians, and guess what happened when the school called to tell them about their daughter? They decided it would be too embarrassing for word to get out, so they told the school to handle it in-house and made her do mandatory counseling with Dr. Bancroft. The girl hanged herself in her dorm room three days later.”

“God,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “And how perfect it is that his wife is right there to make sure he can keep up his sick fantasies and clean up any messes he makes.”

“Maybe that’s why he didn’t care about leaving his DNA everywhere,” Jack said. “His wife kept the slate wiped clean or she just hired different cops who didn’t know the kind of man he really was.”

“What kind of cars do they drive?” I asked.

“He’s got a black Mercedes G550, and she’s got a dark blue BMW X7.”

“Are those SUVs?” I asked, having no clue why Jack would know what those were off the top of his head, but he did.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “We’ll have impound pick them up so we can check for hair and fibers. Between all the evidence discovered at the rental properties Robert Lidle purchased under a dummy company and the Bancrofts’ vehicles, not to mention his hat being found at the scene, we’ve got enough for a solid arrest for first-degree murder.”

“And we’ll just pray that the district attorney doesn’t try to plea him down for more arrests of other people involved.”

“Yeah, well,” Jack said. “One problem at a time.”

“Got it,” Martinez said, coming back in. “Judge Warner was more than happy to sign off. And we caught a stroke of luck. DC Metro sent a couple of units by their house and both were closed up tight and lights were out. On a hunch, I had Plank drive by Everett Lidle’s house. He ran the plates on a Mercedes that was parked in the driveway, and it came back registered to Peter Bancroft.”

“That makes my day,” Jack said, closing the laptop. “Thanks for the help, Doug.”

“Oscar and I are just doing our duty,” Doug said, and I heard Oscar woof in the background.

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