unharmed. Afterward, weâre going to get the men who took her. We might be rough about it.â
âAgent Honsa,â I said, âyouâre starting to grow on me.â
Â
âDo you want to hear the tape again?â the tech agent asked.
âYes,â Bobby said.
âNo,â I said.
Bobby glared at me.
âIâve heard that damn thing fifty times,â I said. âMaybe the name will come to us if we stop listening for a while.â
Bobby glared some more.
âYou need a break,â I said.
âIâll decide that.â
Bobby readjusted the headphones over his ears. A moment later he pulled off the headphones and tossed them on the table. âI need a break,â he said.
We went to the kitchen. Bobby rummaged through his refrigerator. I thought he might be looking for a beer. Instead, he removed a Pepsi, popped the top, and drank greedily.
âRemember Jolt?â he said. âIt was pop that they claimed had âall the sugar and twice the caffeine.â â
âI remember.â
âI could use some Jolt right now. I wonder what happened to it.â
âYou can still get it,â I told him. âYou can buy it over the Internet in longneck bottles. Although, when you think about it, you can get the same amount of caffeine from regular coffee.â
âNever been a coffee drinker.â
âNina likes to eat chocolate-covered coffee beans.â
âThatâs another reason why I question the womanâs judgment. That and the fact that sheâs been seeing you for, what, nearly two years now?â
âI like to think itâs a tribute to her good taste.â
âYou know, sometimes Iâll access the Department of Corrections Web site and study the Level Three sex offender information. I find out the exact location of every sex offender who lives within ten miles of here. I make the girls look at the mug shots. I tell them that if they ever see one of those guys⦠Shelby thinks Iâm being overprotective.â
âYeah.â
âIâm a cop. I carry a gun. I spend my days hunting down murderers and rapists and thieves and every other piece of trash you can think of, but I canât protect my own daughters.â
âItâs not your fault.â
âWho said anything about fault? I know whose fault it is. The bastards who took Victoria, itâs their fault. Still, a guyâs supposed to protect his family, isnât he?â
âAs best he can, yeah.â
Bobby finished his soft drink and hammered the empty can against the kitchen counter.
âThere are things that I canât do, that I canât get away with because Iâm a cop,â he said. âDo you know what I mean by things?â
âI know.â
âYou can do them.â
âYou mean after we find out who took Victoria. After we make sure sheâs safe.â
âYeah.â
âYeah,â I said.
From the expression on his face, I knew Bobby would hold me to that promise.
Â
Bobby and I returned to the tape recording. A few minutes later, Harry approached us with a handheld radio in his mitt.
âGentlemen,â he said, âwe have something.â He spoke to the tech agent. âMap.â
âCity or state?â
âCity.â
The tech agent spread the map over the table. Bobby and I and all four agents gathered around it.
âSt. Paul PD found the van on Jackson Street near East Seventh,â Harry said. It took him about ten seconds to locate the spot in the northeast corner of downtown St. Paul.
âThatâs the Badlands,â I said.
Honsa wanted to know, âBadlands?â
âIn the twenties and thirties, when St. Paul was a haven for gangstersââI circled the area immediately east of the state capitol campus casually with my fingerââthey called this the Badlands because of the speakeasies and the bootleggers and