Jonathon King - A Killing Night

"No. Not really. Marci only worked weekends and didn't come on full until a few weeks ago. They never even met," Laurie said. "Carla worked with her. I think she tried to get Suzy to share rent on an apartment. But like I said, she was kinda shy. Had a place of her own.

"Carla's got the Sunday shift this week. But you're not going to get the girls all scared again, are you?"

Richards put her notebook away and pushed the folder one inch back to the other side of the table.

"I'm sorry," she said as she stood. "But maybe they ought to be scared."

I followed Richards outside and stayed a step behind as she walked down the sidewalk toward the street that ran behind the shopping plaza. She didn't turn or say a word and I was just about to say fuck it and reverse myself and head back to my truck when she stopped at the trunk of a two-door convertible and leaned her butt against the back fender and looked up at me.

"New ride?" I said, trying to cut the tension.

"What do you have for me, Max?" she said, folding her arms in front of her. The paring lights high above put an unnatural shine to her tight blonde hair and a slick paleness to the planes of her face. She looked years older than I knew her to be.

"You're taking this too personal, Sherry."

I put my hands in my pockets. Neutral. Unthreatening. You learn body language when you are a cop.

"Somebody has to, Max. You haven't talked to the mothers of these last two girls, who haven't seen their daughters or heard from them for weeks or even months. They read me their last letters. They send pictures that are years old. High school portraits you get in those same envelopes with the gummy flaps and the sizes and package deals printed all over them. They want to show me Mother's Day cards they got from a completely different state three years ago. They tell me their daughter's hobbies. 'Oh, she loves the beach and horseback riding.'

"They're desperate, Max. And every goddamn agency that they get passed to next tells them until there's evidence of a crime…"

She lowered her head and I took a step toward her and she put up a palm to stop me.

"I'm sorry, Max." She looked up. "What do you have for me?"

I put my hands back in my pockets. I told her about the trip to Philly and the meeting with O'Shea's ex-wife. Without getting into my background with Meagan, I gave her a rundown on my conversations with IAD.

"Christ, you'd at least think that hard-ass lieutenant up there would want to throw some help into this," she said, and I had to work to sustain a poker face.

"The ex-wife says O'Shea never got threatening. Never physical. In fact, she of all people was sure he wouldn't have the guts to carry something off like this and I gotta tell you, Sherry, I get the same vibe."

She turned her face away and looked down the shadowed street and her lips were pressed into a whitening crease.

"Be objective, Sherry. You've got an ex-cop who liked to bounce from bar to bar, dates some bartenders, has a couple of failed trips with women and the capacity for violence with assholes on the street," I said. "That's a profile that could fit me and another two dozen guys in the business we're in. Maybe he's carrying some kind of guilty stink from what happened up in Philly, but you've got nothing on him."

"We'll see," she said and pushed herself off the car with a flex of her thighs.

"What does that mean?"

"I've got a warrant to search his place," she said, walking around to open the driver's door. "One of your muggers from the other night is filing charges saying your buddy tried to kick him to death. He was bleeding and we think we might get some forensics from O'Shea's boots to match it."

I hoped my face didn't look as stunned and stupid as it felt.

"What the hell does that have to do with missing women?" I said.

"You know the game, Max. Maybe we can squeeze him. You never know what a little pressure will bring out once you have somebody inside."

She got in her car and started the engine and I stepped back as she pulled away. Maybe my former girlfriend hadn't just used me. But that's what it felt like.

After Richards left I walked back to my truck and sat in the parking lot watching the door to Kim's, grinding, nowhere to be and not feeling like going back inside. At eleven I walked over to Big Louie's, the Italian restaurant and pizzeria at the front corner of the strip mall. I got some manicotti and coffee to go. I may have even seen Carmine the delivery boy, an angular kid with coat hanger shoulders and a definite acne problem. He had a horselike face and a patch of peroxide blonde hair. He actually had some kind of tattoo on his calf that was impossible to decipher as it wrapped around a leg the diameter of a garden hose. If he tried to abduct one of the bartenders they would have slapped him silly.

Back in the truck I lowered the window to let the gathering odor of red sauce and garlic escape and had my dinner off the passenger seat. On occasion a lone man would approach the door of Kim's and I would focus my small field glasses from the glove box on him. What the hell was I on surveillance for? Had walking around on my old beat for a couple of days put me back in the zone?

I took another bite of pasta and watched a couple bend their heads together at the corner, instantly thought drug deal, and then chastised myself when I saw the flare of the man's lighter as they shared the flame to light their cigarettes. It was then that I realized the new fissure I was grinding was the man I'd seen slip away from the bar in Kim's when Richards had walked in. I'd caught the white glow of his skin between his hairline and collar as he disappeared into the dark and the smooth, athletic grace that got him to the hallway without a stumble or hesitation. There would of course be lots of reasons for someone to bail out of the back of a bar when a detective walked in the front, even if she was plainclothes, even if she just looked the part, and we both probably looked the part to someone paying attention. But the bartender had added to the feel that it wasn't right. If young Marci had some kind of drug dealing going on under the bar, even small-time stuff, they'd be careful. But there had been something in her eyes that lit my suspicion. Whether it was a carryover from my walk down South Street or not, here I was and it didn't necessarily feel wrong. Nice warm night. Box of manicotti. Hot coffee. Shit. I used to hate surveillance.

At one in the morning I decided to move. The lot was clearing and I had counted three times that a city patrol car had cruised through the center and now he was back. I watched the cop pull into a darkened spot almost in a direct line between me and the windows of Kim's, obstructing the view I'd had of Marci's bobbing blonde ponytail. It looked like he was going to stay awhile. Maybe he was there purposely to look after employees of the restaurants and the bar who were getting off work. Maybe some shift sergeant was paying attention to Richards's concerns after all. I did know that if this cop was smart he was going to notice me before long-single male in a pickup truck parked for hours and up to no good.

I started the engine and pulled out of the lot through the back street exit and swung west. There was another parking area used by movie patrons of the multiplex next door. With the right angle, I could still see Kim's front door and would hopefully see when Marci left and if she was picked up by a six-foot athletic man who shied away from the smell of cops.

An hour later my coffee was long dead and cold. The movie had let out and I'd watched couples stroll to their cars and head home, chatting about the merits of plot and pyrotechnics and performances. The last movie I'd been to was with Sherry and the damn thing was out on DVD and could have been having its broadcast debut by now. The night had settled into that long after- hours feel when the city drops in decibels and the streetlights take on a more noticeable presence and the cut of headlights across a brick facade sends shadows moving that you would not have seen at ten o'clock.