Page 106 of Night Hawk
Hibbard shrugged, but his eyes were darkening with a hint of unease.
Trent woke up the screen of a tablet computer. He started a video of Hibbard with a young girl and turned the screen toward Hibbard. His fleshy face paled.
Trent paused the video. “It’s obvious you’re the star of this and seventy-six other videos. So we can add seventy-six counts of rape and start adding more as forensic evidence comes in.”
Hibbard crossed his arms and sunk down on his chair. “They weren’t all minors.”
Clay’s mouth fell open. The guy had all but admitted his role. Maybe he figured there was no way for him to get out of the charges.
“We’ll see once we ID all of them.” Blake sat back, looking relaxed as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “And then we’ll begin on the abduction, kidnapping, and murder charges.”
“I told you I didn’t do those things.” The color returned to Hibbard’s face, leaving it blotchy red.
“But you know about them,” Trent said. “And that makes you an accessory.”
Hibbard’s gaze traveled around the room at a frantic rate as if looking for a way out of the charges.
“Tell us who’s responsible,” Trent said. “And we’ll make sure the district attorney hears about your cooperation.”
Hibbard ran a hand over a little patch of hair remaining on his otherwise bald head. “Fine. It was her. Ursula. Ursula Rader.”
Ursula? Seriously?
Clay couldn’t look away from Hibbard on the far side of the glass, but Trent and Blake remained passive as good interviewers would do.
“Tell us about her,” Trent said.
“She’s something else.” Hibbard shook his head. “Her mother was a prostitute. Ursula vowed to do better in life and never prostituted herself, but she wasn’t above putting other women in that position. She started when she was married to a migrant worker. Conned female workers into having sex with the bosses for money. Built a good stable of girls. But then found out she could make more money with younger girls, but she’d need to quit traveling. She had her husband killed and hooked up with Fritz Rader.”
“Was he into the business, too?” Blake asked.
Hibbard shook his head, his fleshy jowls swinging. “But he found out a few years after their kid was born. He said she needed to quit, but she refused. Rader was obsessed with her, so he turned his back, but he also stored away souvenirs she’d taken to ensure she stayed with him. On the surface they were a perfectly normal, church going family. But when the kid got older and joined the youth group, she took a liking to the leader, and they had an affair.”
So that was what Wilshire was hiding.Clay blinked to try to make sense of the news. “Why didn’t she just kill Rader? I mean, she’d already killed once.”
“Don’t know.”
“Did the youth leader know about the girls?” Blake asked.
“Nah, but he did put her on to one of them.”
“Who?” Blake asked, but Clay already knew the name he would mention.
“The girl who went missing from her grandparents’ place.”
“Lisa Long,” Trent clarified, and Hibbard nodded. “And where is Lisa now?”
Hibbard shrugged, but a knowing look crossed his face.
“Come on, now,” Trent said. “You expect me to believe you don’t know the answer to that?”
“Don’t care what you believe. I don’t know.”
“So why did Ursula walk out on her son?” Blake asked, changing the topic, but Clay knew Blake would come back to Ursula’s location.
“Rader threatened to out her to the police if she tried to take him.”
“But wouldn’t he implicate himself if he did?”
