“Ah, Detective MacDonald,” he said. “I realize you think of me as a people person, but I have other talents you may not yet be aware of.”
Kylie laughed as if it were funny instead of downright creepy.
“I’ve been told to sweep the place and make a hasty retreat,” Dryden said. “I’ll have a prelim for you in five minutes. The sister is inside.”
Elizabeth O’Keefe, a recognizable face since Rachael’s arrest and throughout her trial, was waiting for us in the kitchen. She was sitting on the only chair that was still upright.
“Don’t come in,” she said. “I just wanted you to get a good look.”
We stood in the doorway and took in the mess. The room reeked of wine, and the floor was wet, slick, and covered with broken glass. The cabinet doors on one side of the room were splintered, and the lower half of the stainless-steel refrigerator door looked as if it had been rammed by a Toyota.
“There’s some cheesecake over there,” she said, pointing to a creamy yellow blob jammed against one of the downed chairs. “Take a slice back to the DA and tell him to shove it up his ass.”
“Ms. O’Keefe,” Kylie said, “we’re here to help find your sister.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so effing angry. We asked the DA for police protection for Rachael, but a dozen death threats and the fact that the jury found her innocent wasn’t enough to convince him.”
“And yet when your sister was kidnapped, you called the DA’s office instead of dialing 911,” Kylie said.
O’Keefe stood up. Her jeans and her T-shirt were wet and covered with some of the same slop that streaked the floor. The left side of her face was bruised, there were cuts on her neck and chin, and her wrists and ankles were caked with dried blood.
“Ms. O’Keefe,” Kylie said, “we can drive you to the hospital.”
“Call me Liz. No, I’m fine. Let’s get out of this mess.”
She tiptoed through the broken glass, and we followed her into a small, cluttered living room that looked as though it had been sealed in a time capsule the day it was furnished back in 1960.
Kylie and I sat on a cushy sofa, and Liz, whose clothes were too wet for the fabric, sat on a cane-backed wooden chair.
“I didn’t call the DA first,” she said. “I called Dennis Woloch, Rachael’s lawyer. He can’t legally tell me not to call 911, but he said dialing it would get me the local cops, who would run right over as soon as they finished responding to a loud music complaint or a couple of teenagers smoking weed in the park. I know that’s bullshit, but he also said if the news went out on the local police band, the press would turn the whole thing into another media circus.”
“That part is not bullshit,” Kylie said.
“Mr. Woloch said the DA released Rachael without any protection, and he might be embarrassed enough to call in this elite squad from NYPD, but I guess he sent you instead.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Kylie said, “but we are the elite squad.”
“Oh…I was kind of expecting something more like the navy SEALs.”
“Tell us what happened,” I said.
“One second Rachael and I were in the kitchen talking, and the next second two masked guys with guns came through the breezeway door.”
“Do you think they followed you from New York?” I asked.
“I was thinking somebody might, so I kept checking my rearview, but I never saw anyone. Even when I turned onto this dead-end street. Nobody.”
“What happened once they broke in?”
“They made us get on the floor. One tied Rachael up. The other one holstered his gun so he could tie me up, and I kneed him in the balls. Do you know Krav Maga? It’s an Israeli self-defense technique.”
“We know it well,” Kylie said.
“I’ve been studying it ever since I got mugged five years ago. If it had been just the one guy, I could’ve taken him, but they double-teamed me.”
“And then what?”
“They carried me to the bathroom, tied me up, and disabled all the phones. A few minutes later, I heard them carry Rachael out and drive away.”
“If their car was parked nearby, wouldn’t you have seen it when you drove in?”
“No. I was worried about someone following me. I didn’t check out the parked cars.”
“Can you describe the two men?” I asked.
“They were dressed in black. One was maybe six two. The other was shorter. Both strong. Their voices sounded like they were most likely white guys, kind of young—they knew what they were doing, like they were military.”