J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading, and to everyone who has followed and/or favorited this story! Thank you especially to AllTrekkedUp and Julie for your reviews on chapter 8!

Chapter IX

A Suspect

When he saw the kidnapper bringing Roy here, Johnny almost forgot to duck back behind the corner of the building. Fortunately, he remembered before he was spotted. He leaned against the wall, trying to think through this rapidly. He had an even bigger decision to make now, and even less time to make it. Should he still try to escape and leave Roy behind to face the consequences or should he let himself be recaptured, and who knew what happen to either of them then?

There was a sudden, angry shout from inside the shack. Clearly, the kidnapper realized that his prisoner had escaped now. Johnny's mind was suddenly made up. He would try to escape, and maybe while the kidnapper was trying to catch him, Roy would have time to get away. Without another moment's hesitation, Johnny made a dash for the clump of trees.

As soon as he reached them, he threw himself on the ground behind them, and then carefully looked back to see what was going on with the kidnapper. The man had come out of the shack and was looking wildly around. Clearly, he hadn't spotted Johnny – yet. Johnny looked around him for where his next piece of cover might be. The nearest cover seemed to be a small rise in the ground, about a dozen yards away. It wouldn't take Johnny long to cover that, but it could be long enough for him to be spotted.

He glanced back toward the shack. The kidnapper had disappeared from view, either around the other side of the building or back inside it. John shuddered at what his plan inside might be, but he couldn't think about that right now. This was his chance to get to the next piece of cover. Taking a deep breath, he ran for it. He covered the distance swiftly and had almost made it to the cover when a gunshot made him stop in his tracks. He turned around slowly and saw the kidnapper once again outside the shack, holding Roy by the arm with one hand and his gun with the other.

"If you want what's good for your friend here, you'll turn around and come right back," the kidnapper challenged him.

There was nothing to be done about it now. Drooping a bit with defeat, Johnny retuned to the kidnapper, how shoved him roughly back inside, dragging Roy along as well.

"All right," the man said, pointing his gun at Roy. "You sit down, and your pal here will tie you up. Then I'll tie him up. Got it?"

Johnny and Roy exchanged glances and by silent agreement, determined not to make any response other than to nod. The kidnapper threw a piece of rope at Johnny, which he then proceeded to use to bind Roy's hands. He thought the kidnapper would probably check his knots once he was done tying John up, but just in case, Johnny only tied the rope tight enough so that it would look good. Then the kidnapper stuck his gun in his belt and prepared to tie Johnny's wrists. For a moment, John thought about trying to jump him, but he could easily imagine how that might go wrong. Maybe if Roy was still free – but Johnny doubted that Roy could get himself loose that fast. Resignedly, Johnny allowed his hands to be bound, wincing as the kidnapper pulled the ropes tight around his raw wrists. At least, the villain hadn't forced him to take the bandages off.

"Looks like you had a hard time getting loose," the kidnapper commented, noticing the bandages. "Maybe you'll think twice before you try it again." As John had expected, he looked over Roy's bonds and tightened them considerably. Then he sat down at the table and picked up a handheld two-way radio, but he didn't turn it on.

Roy was the one who finally broke the silence. "Sorry about that, Johnny. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Johnny replied, grumbling. "Are you?"

"So far," Roy said.

"What about that deal I mentioned before we came up here?" the kidnapper spoke up at last. "You think that over at all, DeSoto?"

"What deal?" Johnny asked, not liking the sound of this at all.

"Just something between DeSoto and me," the kidnapper replied. "It's not any of your concern. Well, DeSoto, what are you thinking? You want to take me up on it?"

Roy had done a lot of thinking about it – in fact, he'd done little else but think of this man's threat against his family since he had first been captured. He had been terrified by it at first, but now he was starting to think that it was all a bluff. The whole point of this man's scheme was to keep the witnesses of his crime from talking. Would he really risk more crimes than he had to – and having more witnesses? Roy didn't think so.

"Well?" the kidnapper asked. "I'm waiting."

"You know," Roy said, trying to pick just the right words that would be the most persuasive, "I don't think this is a very good deal for you. It's a lot of risk, and you don't really get anything out of it. If I don't talk, and then you – do that, it's not going to change my mind."

"But there's three of them," the kidnapper pointed out. "What if I picked them off one at a time?"

"I don't think you could do that," Roy said, trying hard to keep his voice even. "That would be riskier than anything else you've tried so far."

It didn't take Johnny long to figure out what they were talking about. "This guy threatened your family?" he asked Roy in mingled disgust and surprise.

Neither Roy nor the kidnapper answered. Instead, the kidnapper said, "Well, there are other ways of getting you to talk."

"For what?" Johnny demanded, furious after learning about the man's threat. "All you want are the names of the two cops. Why go to all this bother for that?"

"And if it's so little, why don't you just tell me?" the kidnapper countered.

Johnny was about to argue further, but Roy had an idea and interrupted him. "Could we talk about this between the two of us?"

"So you can plan something?" the kidnapper asked suspiciously.

"We just want to talk about what our best option is," Roy replied.

"I guess. Go ahead," the kidnapper said, but he didn't back off. Instead, Roy and John had to drop their voices.

"We can't give him the names, Roy," Johnny protested. "The guy's out of his head. He wants to kill them."

"And us, too," Roy reminded him. "I don't want to give him the names, but how far would it really get him?"

"He found us just by having the number of our unit," Johnny pointed out.

"Okay," Roy admitted, "but what if we don't give him their real names?"

"He'll figure it out and then kill us." Johnny sighed. "But I think that's what he's planning to do, anyway."

"He might even leave us alone while he goes out and looks for them," Roy said. "That could give us a chance to escape."

"All right," Johnny agreed. "Let's try it."

"We made up our minds," Roy said more loudly.

"You'll give me the names, then?" the kidnapper asked.

"Arthurs and Liesel," Roy replied, making up names that didn't sound too improbable but hopefully there weren't any real police officers with those names.

"Great," the kidnapper said, setting the radio on the table. "I won't need this, then. I was thinking I'd call the police and tell them they'd have to surrender those two officers if they wanted you two back alive, but that wouldn't work so well most likely. Now I won't need to take the chance. I'll keep you two around in case something goes wrong and I need leverage after all, but I'd better make sure you don't escape this time."

He went to a cupboard and pulled out a roll of duct tape. Then he grabbed the back of Johnny's chair and pulled him farther away from Roy. Once that was done, he used the duct tape to secure their wrists more and to bind their ankles and legs to the legs of the chairs. As a finishing touch, he tore off two more pieces of tape and put one of each of their mouths.

"This way, you can't try to make any sort of plans," the kidnapper explained. "I'll be back. You'd better be here when I come."

/

Jim was feeling a little better that afternoon, although he still couldn't get the possible murder case off his mind. He decided that it couldn't hurt for a change of scenery to go for a short walk around the area where the "accident" had happened. Maybe he'd see something that would remind him of something he hadn't particularly noticed that day.

The neighborhood was just as quiet as it had been the day of the "accident". The only difference was that it was a Saturday, and a few kids were playing in their front yards. Otherwise, the neighborhood appeared to be sleepy and dull.

One place that Jim made a point of walking past was the victim's former home. Jim recalled that the victim had been named Roger Winfall and had lived near the scene of the accident. When he came to the address, he saw that it was a large, upper-middle-class house. He stopped to look at it for a few minutes.

As he was looking, a woman walked past and evidently noticed his interest. "You're not looking for Roger Winfall, are you?" she asked.

"No," Jim replied. "Actually, I'm a police officer. You've heard about the accident, right?"

"Oh, certainly," the woman said. "Except I don't think it was any accident. Of course, it's none of my business –"

"No," Jim told her. "If you have anything that can help us out with the investigation, we want to hear about it."

"Oh, well, I could tell you a few things," the woman replied.

Jim took a pad of paper and a pencil from his pocket. "I'd like to write this down. Could you give me your name, ma'am?"

"Mrs. Elizabeth Sandberg," the woman replied. "I live just a few houses down the street."

"Why do you think it wasn't an accident?" Jim asked.

"Oh, well." Mrs. Sandberg seemed a little hesitant to say. "You see, I was never a close friend of Mr. Winfall's. He wasn't the easiest neighbor to get along with. But I made it a point to take a meal to each of the bachelors and widowers on this street at least once a month – with no woman to cook for them, most of them just eat canned food all the time – and Mr. Winfall wasn't an exception. I don't think he had many friends, because every now and then, he'd want me to stick around and talk to him. One day, he told me that he had a nephew who was no good and had it out for him. He had tried to kill him once, and that was why Mr. Winfall moved out here to Los Angeles."

"So, you think this nephew killed him?" Jim inquired.

"I do," Mrs. Sandberg replied. "Just a couple of days before Mr. Winfall was killed, I took a meal to him. He told me that he'd heard his nephew had bought a place up in the hills, and he'd been seeing him around the neighborhood. I told him to go to the police, but he didn't listen, and then just a couple of days later, he gets killed. It sounds pretty suspicious to me."

Jim jotted down Mrs. Sandberg's story excitedly. Finally, there was some clue to what had happened. "Did he tell you the nephew's name, Mrs. Sandberg?"

"He did," the woman said. "The fellow's name is Lester Wording."