Jonathon King - The Blue Edge of Midnight

"Too much hurry up to close cases. Not enough time to spend thinking about them, being sure. I wasn't very, uh, efficient."

I was looking into her eyes this time.

"You like going out? On cases I mean," I said quickly.

She let a smile slip and I grabbed it like it was real.

"I mean, you look like you're pretty good at it."

"It's been OK. Except for this case. But I probably liked the road better too."

"How long you been with Diaz?"

She half shook her head, the smile went into a wry grin.

"I've been in Hammonds' group for about twelve months. Since my husband died. They thought it would be better for me." She was looking past me again, off into the playground.

"Your husband was a cop?"

"Road patrol. Answered a silent alarm at a convenience store late at night. One of those you know is going to be a false alarm. When he got there three kids in jackets in the middle of summer were walking backwards out of the place and when they saw the squad car they bolted."

A strand of hair fell across her cheek, but she ignored it.

"His partner ran after the two older ones and left Jimmy chasing the little one. The kid went down a blind alley and got trapped by a construction fence."

Her eyes did not look down. She was re-creating the scene behind them.

"They found Jimmy lying six feet from the fence. Two shots from a half-assed.22-caliber. One hit him in the vest but the other went straight into his eye and tumbled. He never even took his gun out of his holster. They got him to the hospital, but he never regained consciousness."

My fingers had gone quietly to the spot on my neck.

"Sorry," I said. "They get the kid?"

She nodded, looking out at the playground behind me again.

"Middle-schooler. Eleven years old."

Diaz had walked up while we were both caught in our own silence, staring past each other. He sat three square Styrofoam containers on the table.

"What?" he said, looking from her to me and back.

"You bring an extra side of sauce?" Richards said, as if we'd been discussing the weather.

"Of course. The reverend with the magic sauce," Diaz said, climbing into a seat next to his partner. "He always treats me right."

We ate with little conversation. Diaz asked for more detail on Ashley and Nate Brown. As I described them, the worn and washed-out look of their clothes, the deep lines in both their faces seamed by hours of looking out over open spaces in unshaded sun, I realized that neither man had worn any adornment. No rings or watches. No fancy belt buckles. But envisioning them again standing up to greet me, I remembered the small leather knife scabbard that each man, including Blackman, had worn on his belt. Sims was the only man in the group without one. I didn't bother adding that observation to the mix as we sat and ate.

"This is truly wonderful stuff, Diaz. But we gotta go," Richards finally said.

Driving back to the administration building Diaz suggested that Richards drive me back north to Billy's tower.

"I'd do it," he said, "but I better get on this Ashley profile, see if we can find anything."

Before she had a chance to respond I told them Billy was down at the county courthouse and they could just drop me there.

"I'll get a ride back with him."

Richards stayed silent, looking out into the sun through the front windshield. Diaz drove several blocks to the county justice center and swung to the curb. I thanked him for lunch and got out. Richards' side window whirred down and Diaz leaned over her.

"We'll be in touch?"

I tapped the hot finish on the roof, waited until Diaz pulled his head back and then answered his question to Richards' eyes.

"I hope so."

They waited until the automatic doors of the building entrance slid closed before pulling away. I stood behind the glass and watched them disappear into traffic. I wondered if Richards had just strung me a line with the story of her husband, using my own past to find a psychological connection to somehow loosen me. Then I thought of the look in her eyes when she was staring across the street at the kids on the playground. She might be a good investigator. She might even be a good liar, as a good investigative interviewer sometimes has to be. But there was something real about her. Not even a pro could lie like that.

I went to a bank of phones just inside and called Billy. Like the good lawyer he was, he told me to keep my nose out of it.

"Max, I thought you were off the hook, my friend. Don't let the idea of a setup get you vengeful enough to set yourself up."

"Whatever Sims told them already got them back on me. This guy Hammonds is playing a hell of a chess game."

"The more places you show up, the more circumstantial he's got to lay on you. Don't make it easy on him, Max."

Sims had dropped a dime on me. Or maybe Hammonds had shaken it out of him. Either way I needed to get to him.

I had Billy contact his woman lawyer friend who came up with a phone number and the address of a lab on the property of Florida Electric in south Dade County.

When I got Sims on the phone, he hesitated at the sound of my voice.

"Jesus, I didn't mean for you to get in trouble," he said. It was impossible to tell how sincere he was over the phone.

"Yeah, well, what you meant and what it ended up being don't go together," I said, putting a bite in my voice, ad-libbing as we went along. "I just got myself clear of these guys and then on your word they pulled me in and put me through another round of interrogation. Is that what you and your friends meant when you said you thought I could identify with your harassment? 'Cause now you put it back on me."

There was silence on the other end of the line, but I could hear the man breathing, feel him thinking.

"Look. I didn't mean to get you in deeper. This thing is getting way too spooky," he finally said.

I could hear the same struggle going on in his voice as Gunther had shown in the hospital.

"Yeah? Tell me about it," I said.

"Not over the phone."

"Where do you want to meet?" I said, pushing him through the door that he had already opened.

"You know the way to the power plant?"

I told him to give me directions and after I punched him off I sat thinking about what Hammonds had said about sticking my fingers into his investigation. I decided I didn't care at this point. Members of the Loop Road gang were either deeply paranoid or something was truly scaring them and I'd stumbled into a position of loosening them up. Hammonds was never going to get that far. I rang Billy back, told him where I was going, listened to his objections, and then walked outside and hailed a cab from in front of the courthouse.

When I climbed in the back and told the driver that I needed to get to Turkey Point, he turned in his seat and said, "Dade County?" I nodded my head and handed him a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet. He smiled and turned up the air conditioning.

When we got to the end of U.S. 1 we went east on Palm Drive, toward the ocean but far south of the tourist beaches and oceanfront glitz of South Miami. Here the land rolled out flat with brown, dormant tomato fields lining either side of the roadway. An occasional tree farm with rows and rows of palms in various stages of growth took up more space. We followed a sign to a secondary road and ran into a chain-link fence marked with a Florida Electric sign: Private Property. All visitors report at the security entrance.

The cabby hesitated but Sims had told me to ignore the sign so I urged him on down a dirt road that branched away from the parking lots and led to a small block building sitting alone on a hump of land.

A dirty white van was parked near the front entrance and was the only vehicle in sight. The building was made of stuccoed cinderblock, windowless and painted in dull beige, with a thick metal door. I gave the cabby another fifty dollars and told him if he was here in an hour he could take me back to Palm Beach. He smiled again and in broken English said he'd be back.