they’ve done with it. A Chinese gang here took over a wing of one of these complexes, ran a whorehouse and peddled dope out of it. They had elementary school kids as their gofers.’ She shook her head. ‘If I don’t sound caustic, I’ll cry.’
‘Here. This is the address.’
‘Gomez and his team already tried to get in touch with her,’ Vernetta said. ‘No dice.’
‘Yes, but we’re not the scary police, are we?’
‘You are. You’ve scared me since you came into town,’ Vernetta said. She pulled into the parking lot, past three hard-faced working girls. The bored ladies watched them ease into a slot and walk across to the stairs, up to apartment 325.
Claudia knocked. No answer. But she could hear the soft strains of a radio playing on the other side of the door.
‘Tasha? Tasha Strong?’ she called softly. ‘I’m a friend of Robin Melvin’s. She’s worried about you. Please open up.’
The door opened. An old woman stood there, dressed in a faded pink robe and a maroon baseball cap. ‘Tasha don’t live here,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Hello, ma’am. Do you know where we could find her?’ Claudia said, ignoring the woman’s blunt manner.
‘No,’ the old woman said. ‘She’s gone for good.’
Claudia and Vernetta looked at each other, then at the old woman. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, when did Tasha leave?’ Claudia asked after a moment.
‘Who are you?’
Vernetta and Claudia both showed their official IDs. ‘Oh, God,’ the old woman said. ‘She’s in trouble, I’m sure of it, but she won’t help herself get out and she sure won’t listen to me.’
‘We can help her,’ Vernetta said.
‘Come inside, then,’ the woman said. They came inside the apartment. It was small but clean, although there was a clutter of a tea mug, tissues, a rumpled newspaper. A cane was next to the door and the woman used it as she headed back for a chair. ‘Gettin’ over flu,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t be contagious any more. Sit.’
‘Are you Tasha’s mother?’ Claudia asked.
‘Grandmother,’ the woman said. ‘Mrs Annie Strong.’ She sat. ‘I don’t hold with lying, and I haven’t slept well since the police called looking for her. Tasha asked me to lie for her, and I can’t do it no more because you folks are gonna keep knocking on my door.’
‘What lie did she want you to tell?’
‘First Tasha told me that if anyone came looking for her, say she was dead. Not to say she moved, or gone on a trip, but dead. Killed in a car accident in New Orleans, that was her story. Showed me what looked like a death certificate she’d faked up. I said you’re crazy, girl, what kind of trouble you in?’ Mrs Strong shook her head. ‘That’s a tall order to give me, after I done half the raising of her. I told her I’d tell people she’d left town, but not that she was dead.’ Mrs Strong spit out the last word.
‘So where is she?’
Mrs Strong shook her head. ‘I don’t know. She ain’t lived here in years.’
‘She gave this as her address to her employer.’
‘Huh. She got her community college degree, she moved uptown fast. Left me in the dust. Came to see me when it suited her.’
Claudia remembered Robin’s mention of the photos. ‘Does Darius live here?’
The old woman closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Darius, he really dead. Five years ago. Out playing basketball down the street with a group of boys who dealt. Other group of boys shot at ’em all. Killed Darius. He was fifteen.’ She leaned against the door. ‘Fifteen-year-olds killin’ each other for crack. Tasha, got everything in the world going for her, she tells me to tell the world she’s dead because she’s in bad trouble she won’t let nobody help her fix. Like I could bear her and Darius both dead. It would kill me. I can’t pull off such a lie for her. I ain’t doing it. No. Ain’t doing it. You find her. Please.’
‘She’s running because of what happened to Paul Bellini,’ Vernetta said as they drove away.
‘But why would a woman whose brother was killed by drug dealers take up with a drug lord?’
‘She didn’t know Bellini’s business.’
‘She knows enough to be scared, so she’s asking her grandmother to do clumsy lying for her,’ Claudia said. ‘Can you ask HPD to look for her?’
‘If she’s a witness, or she’s charged in a crime. But if she’s left willingly and doesn’t want to be found, well, you hire another PI to find her.’
‘What?’
‘If she’s left willingly…’
‘No,’ Claudia said. ‘You said another PI.’
‘Yeah. I was thinking of your friend Harry. Like him looking for Eve Michaels.’
Frank Polo said something about another PI, when she was getting ready to leave his house. Another, like he’d known of a first one. Harry. Perhaps Whit had told Frank about Harry. Of course. Yes. Probably.
The thought irritated her brain like a thorn prick. Whoever killed Harry had stripped him of his ID. Possibly of his notes on the Eve Michaels case; none of those had been found by the police, and she knew Harry kept his notes with him. There was a simple way to test her theory. ‘Have they identified all the prints at the Chyme/ Doyle murder scene?’
‘I don’t know. Gomez would. I don’t even know if they have suspect prints to compare to.’
‘How quickly could Gomez get prints done?’ she asked.
‘Why?’
‘That photo of Frank Polo that’s on my back seat,’ Claudia said. ‘Let’s put it under the powder, see what shows.’
45
At ten on Monday night, the front door of Frank and Eve’s house stood open, a rectangle of glowing light in the darkness. Whit stepped inside.
Frank’s phone call to him had been quiet and calm: Bucks is here and wants to talk. We have a plan. Make no mention you have the film, he doesn’t need to know. Come alone. And so Whit had walked past the doctors and nurses and families facing down death at the ICU, left a sleeping Gooch behind and driven to Frank’s house in Charlie’s borrowed Lexus.
‘Come on in,’ a voice called from the den. Unhurried, relaxed.
Whit walked into the den and Bucks sat at the edge of the couch. Pistol in hand, but pointed down at the floor. His suit was rumpled, his tie gone, the black eye Whit gave him in full bruising bloom.
‘You want your mom back?’ he asked.
‘Where is she, you bastard?’ Whit said. But calm.
‘Frank knows,’ Bucks said.
‘So where’s Frank?’
‘I’m here, Whit.’ Frank stood in the doorway.
‘Truce,’ Bucks said. ‘Because we’re all buddies now. We’re all on the same side. Got a proposal for you.’
Whit waited.
‘You could have brought the police,’ Bucks said. ‘You didn’t. I could kill you. I won’t. We got to trust each other. At least for the next few hours.’ He smiled. ‘I admire your steadfast focus.’
‘Give me a minute to come up with a compliment about you,’ Whit said. ‘Maybe an hour.’
‘Peace treaty, okay? I know you don’t have the money.’
‘So why help us now?’ Whit glanced over at Frank. ‘Need good deeds for extra credit?’
‘Jose’s the bad guy,’ Bucks said. ‘We get your mom, we get the money, and then we’re all fine.’
‘And we all go our separate ways.’
‘Yes, Whit. And never open our mouths. You want mommy with you, right, not dead or rotting in jail or
