Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“I already have,” I said.

“Do you want my files? Something here might help them.”

“They’ve already gone through your files, right? They’ve already written you off as a nut. I might stop by to go through them again. I’ll call you if I learn anything more.”

The anger and disappointment seemed to have tightened her mouth. She could barely get the words out. “Thank you, Terry.”

I snapped my phone shut, sat in my car, and watched the mob thin as the cop cars came and went. I kept thinking I should have done something differently. Cara had been a kid in pain and I could’ve reached out to her more. I could have advised her better. The same was true about my own sister. I needed to watch over her more carefully. I couldn’t make the same mistake again.

Gilmore.

I’d memorized his address from the rent receipt in his desk at the precinct. I thought of Gilmore working my kidneys, full of fury but trying to control it. Hating me, maybe the same way that Collie did. A man on the edge who’d been dipping his toe into bloody puddles.

I drove over to the complex. It was nicer than I remembered, with a large open court full of flowers and trimmed hedges. He had a one-bedroom corner apartment. There were three locks on the door, looked like two of them were fairly fresh. Did that prove he had something to hide? Gilmore should know that putting in your own locks often made it easier for someone to break in. Locksmiths got sloppy, didn’t cut out the perfectly sized holes for the latches and bolts. The work sometimes loosened the door in its frame, giving a little extra play in the setting. There was no one around. I felt strangely calm considering my suspicions. It took me fifty seconds to get through all three locks.

I crept the place. I searched for anything that might tie Gilmore to the Clarkes or the other women. I checked all the obvious and inconspicuous places. I searched for kill trophies. I checked his cereal boxes again. No cash, nothing. He’d wised up. He wouldn’t keep money around the place anymore. So where was the extra cash that he made off Danny Thompson? Was he flying straighter now or did he have a secure lockbox someplace?

He didn’t take his work home with him. There were no files, no paperwork. I went through his computer and discovered nothing encrypted. All I found were photo albums of his kids, hundreds of pictures of better times with them and his wife at the beach, trick-or-treating, opening Christmas presents. I found the photos that my old man had taken of Gilmore’s daughters, the two of them standing near their mother’s car, as if waiting to be driven to school. What did that say about Gilmore? Was he obsessing over his kids? Over girls or women in general? And what the hell did it say about my father? Was it as creepy as it seemed? Or was it just further proof that lonely men with too much time on their hands will do strange things to alleviate their average sorrows?

It wasn’t hard to push a good man off the big ledge. It happened every day. Heartbreak could make you a murderer. So could losing your job, drugs, or having one beer too many. Or maybe nothing at all, like Collie kept saying.

An hour after I’d entered, I relocked his door and got back to my car. I phoned information and got the number for the television station where Eve and Vicky worked. It took me ten minutes to wade through the menu and finally get Eve. She answered on the first ring.

“You’ve heard about Cara Clarke?” I asked.

She wasn’t someone hisnwho needed the quiet hellos and the after-sex small talk. I wondered if I did, if I normally would want it if I hadn’t just seen the body of a murdered teenage girl.

“Vicky’s been on scene,” Eve said. “We’re busy here now, Terry. Your brother’s story was big before, but now-”

“Off the charts.”

“Yes.”

I had difficulty saying it. “I need your help.”

“Anything,” she said.

“In exchange for an in-depth on-camera interview, right?”

“No, Terry. I know you’d probably agree to sit for one, but it would be a lie. I’m a professional but not a shrew. Hopefully we’re at least a few steps along the road to being friends. So what can I do to help?”

“The cop I mentioned. His name is Detective Gilmore.”

I could hear her perk up in her seat. In the background there was a din of voices, the sound of a lot of activity. I wondered what other kind of fallout Cara’s death would bring.

“You said you still needed him. That you didn’t want me to do an exposé.”

“I just want you to dig. Find out what you can about him.”

“Why?”

Because , I nearly said, my brother is manipulating me into being suspicious of everyone, and it’s making me as crazy as he is .

“A screwy hunch. It’s probably nothing, but I’ve got a gut feeling I can’t shake loose.”

“And what am I looking for?”

“I’m not certain. See if his jacket has gotten sketchy in any way over the last five years. If there’ve been any off-duty collars in places where he shouldn’t be. If there’s been any kind of internal investigation into him. If he’s had a psych evaluation.”

I could tell that she held the phone a little tighter to her lips, got herself away from the noise of the newsroom. Now there was something like concern in her voice. “You suspect him of something. What is it?”

“First let me know if anything pans out, then I’ll fill you in if I can.”

“You ask a lot,” she said.

“Everyone does.”

“Give me a couple of hours.”

I disconnected. I had to keep moving. I was close to the address that had been on Butch’s suspended driver’s license. I had to keep an eye on the punk and his crew and see if Dale needed something more than a butterfly knife to protect herself. I had to see who his connections were.

It was a nice house, obviously his parents’ place. His Chevy wasn’t around. I rang the bell, and when his mother answered I told her that I was a high school buddy of Joe’s and wanted to catch up on old times. I figured she wouldn’t call him “Butch.”

Despite the gray streak and a few extra years, I was young enough to look like we’d run together. I turned on my most winning smile. She looked at me like she knew I was lying but that everyone who hung around her son lied to her. Her face went hard and drained of all interest and concern. She told me he hadn’t been livin="jAg at home for some time and shut the door in my face.

Next stop was the Fifth Amendment. Butch wasn’t around. Nobody knew where he might be. Danny was holding court with his crew in their usual spot. A lot of fat cats with lit cigars were rolling their sleeves up. It looked like a big poker game was on the agenda for later tonight. Maybe someone had Butch out picking up some fresh baked goods. I split.

From the road I phoned the house, hoping to talk to my sister. My father answered and put Dale on.

“Where’s Butch?” I asked.

“Why?”

“I wanted to ask him something.”

“What?”

“What to get you for your birthday.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m not pregnant. You don’t have to beat him up. And he didn’t defile me either. I wasn’t a virgin when I met him, you know.”

Some things men weren’t meant to imagine, and a sister’s first time was one of them. “Shut up! Christ! Tell me where he is.”

“No,” she said. “And thank you for the knife.” Then I heard her turn on her blow dryer and she hung up.

I staked out my own house and parked down the street, mostly hidden by a curtain of brush. Dale fixing her hair meant she’d be heading out soon.

Butch picked her up around seven o’clock and I tagged along. There wasn’t much need. I figured they’d be heading over to the lake. Butch parked pretty much in the same spot as before. They reenacted everything that they’d done the other night, except that Butch seemed to be drinking a lot more. Maybe the pressure of the heist was getting to him.