The Perfect Witness

Detective Pat Ethan patiently guides Jenny Roberts through her memories of the kidnapping. Jenny recalls that the hideout is three floors up, mostly empty, and furnished with an old chair and table. Dirt covers the floor, and a creaking door leads to a second room. The smell of makeup remover confirms that the robbers had worn disguises, making their visible descriptions unreliable. Their conversation also suggests that one man abandoned Eugene's stolen car near an Odenton gas station while the other later collected him in the pickup truck.

Jenny is tired but determined not to let the trail grow cold. Ethan insists that a rested mind will be more useful and postpones the questioning until morning. She also speaks with Fred Holstein, who embellishes his bravery during the robbery but reveals an important fact: the rare Hoggard book was not inside an envelope. It was plainly sticking out of Katrina Shanks's knapsack. Whatever the robbers opened in their car, it was something else.

Captain Quinn tells Ethan that Eugene's laptop and backup disks were stolen and that the files on his desktop were erased before his car became the getaway vehicle. Ethan sees many scattered pieces but cannot yet connect them. The next morning, she asks Jenny to ignore the room and focus on the noises outside it.

Jenny remembers heavy vehicles, backup beepers, horns, pounding, and a strange rapid noise like a woodpecker or an old movie machine gun. The sounds suggest construction. Police bring recordings for her to identify, but the many similar effects begin confusing her memory. Then the laboratory reports concrete dust and churned-up clay on Eugene's car. Ethan realizes they may be looking for demolition rather than construction. Jenny immediately recognizes the rapid sound of an industrial pneumatic chisel.

The police compare all demolition work within twenty miles of Odyssey with the railroad crossing from Jenny's journey. Each listed location conflicts with something she heard. At last Ethan notices an old ironworks complex in the path of a new state highway. Its demolition does not appear on local lists because the state controls the work. The complex contains three buildings: an office, a factory, and an old apartment building. One has already been demolished, another came down the night before, and the apartment building is scheduled to fall that day.

Quinn races officers to the site and stops the demolition just in time. On the third floor of the apartment building, they find a room matching Jenny's description. Katrina's knapsack lies there with the cash still inside, confirming that money was never the true goal. The missing Hoggard book is also in the bag. If neither the money nor the rare book was worth keeping, the detectives still do not know what the thieves actually stole - or why Eugene's computer had to be stripped of every file.