Malone dropped his glasses in his pocket. “Your man doesn’t look real interested.”
“He knows how the story ends,” I said.
When I returned to the department, Harry was in a conference room, the murder book between his arms on the table. He looked up.
“Tell me you found the golden link at the prison, Carson. That you’re about to sit your ass right down in front of me and pull it all together.”
I sighed and laid out the story.
“He signed in as a lawyer?” Harry said. “Maybe we should check local legal types, see if they can ID him.”
I ran a list of lawyers in my head. Only one got highlighted in yellow. “What we need is a lawyer perfectly comfortable with murderers, rapists, dope mules, and general pukes.”
Harry said, “I can’t go near Preston Walls, Cars. I already ate today.”
“Don’t sweat it. I can solo.”
Harry stood and yanked the orange sport coat from his chair, pulled it over the blue-centric aloha shirt.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, partner. Let’s stop on the way over and buy a can of Lysol. I want to spray down before we visit Walls.”
D. Preston Walls had an office near the courthouse, tavern on one side, bail bondsman on the other. Location, location, location. A Porsche at the curb was vanity-tagged LGLEGL. I shouted my name into a metal grate and held my badge and ID to a camera before being buzzed inside.
Walls’s secretary, receptionist, whatever, was a torpedo-breasted blonde with bee-stung lips, cocaine eyes, and a pair of handcuffs tattooed on a bare shoulder. She purred that we should sit until her boss was off the phone, then sucked a cigarette and stared at my crotch until I crossed my legs.
Ten minutes later Walls appeared, fortyish, five-seven or — eight, overweight, sloppy brown suit, hair in a ponytail like it made him hip. Diamond stud in one ear. At handshake time, Harry turned away and looked out the grated window.
“Carson, Harry, I’m floored,” Walls brayed, indifferent to the slight. “Jeez, I haven’t seen you guys since Rollie Kreeg’s trial. Last year? Has that much time gone by since…” He paused, mouth open like something slipped his mind. “I think I’m having a senior moment, guys. What was the verdict? Who won?”
I gritted my teeth. “You did, D. P. A. technicality, if I recall.”
Walls grinned. “Technicality, schmecknicality…It’s all the clash of ideas. Of constitutional guarantees. Of the collective versus the individual, the safety of the rights of private citizens who-”
Harry stared at Walls. “How safe are citizens from the rapists and murderers you get off?”
Walls raised an eyebrow. “If I get them off, Harry, they’re innocent.”
I stepped between Harry and Walls and slid a photo from my pocket, a still shot pulled from the VCR at the prison.
“How about this lawyerish-looking guy, Preston? You know him?”
If Walls glanced at the photo, it was a millisecond. He tried to hand it back.
“Look again,” I said. “Longer.”
Walls took a perfunctory second glance, seemed to be looking past the photo. He frowned.
“What is it, Preston?”
Walls tweezed the photo between his thumb and forefinger, like it was something he didn’t feel safe touching. The picture dropped in my hands.
“Never seen him before. Gotta go, guys. Nice talking to you.”
He walked us to the lobby and retreated behind his door. I heard it lock.
We returned to the department. Harry started through the doorway, stopped abruptly, threw his arm in front of me, and nodded across the room at our cubicle. Pace Logan was sitting at Harry’s desk, leafing through papers. Harry moves fast and light when necessary, a second later was standing behind Logan.
“Help you, Logan?”
“Oh, shit. Nautilus. I was just-”
I jogged up. Logan had Taneesha Franklin’s murder book in front of him, opened to the photo section.
“Just what?”
Logan went into defensive mode. “What’s it look like? I’m checking the book. I was at the scene, remember? First, if I recall. I got some spare time, thought I’d see how things were developing. That all right with you?”
“You want to look at things, Logan, ask.”
Logan stood, showed teeth. He jammed the book into Harry’s chest.
“Fuck you, Nautilus. I didn’t know you owned the murder books. Guess I forgot to sign it out from King Dick.”
I stepped between them before Harry did or said something that was momentarily gratifying but improvident in the longer run. Logan stormed back to his desk, the smell of tobacco in his wake. Harry blew out a long breath and we sat. I had my usual pile of call slips from strung-out snitches trying to peddle fiction, but a name stood out. Ms. Rudolnick had called. The message was “Nothing important, just checking.”
I picked up my phone, called, kicking myself for not alerting her the moment we’d secured the files, good manners.
“How are you, ma’am?”
“I was just wondering, did the key work?”
“Thank you, yes. Your son’s files are safe. No one else will ever see them.”
“Are the files helpful?”
“We’re still reviewing them. It’s a big job.”
“Just find the person who caused my son’s death, sir.”
“We will, ma’am. Thanks for checking.”
“Certainly. Oh, by the way, sir?”
“Yes?”
“I had some wonderful moments yesterday. A delightful young friend of Bernie’s stopped by.”
“Who?”
“I don’t trust many people, and I know there are all manner of scams directed at people my age, so I asked questions. He knew everything about Bernie: how his left eye fluttered when he got nervous, how he liked puns. Bernie had a very individual way of walking, fast, spinning on his heel to turn around. The young man mimicked Bernie’s walk and we both had a good laugh. It was refreshing, the best I’d felt in a long time. My young visitor had such wonderful things to say about my son.”
“Who was this young man, Ms. Rudolnick?”
“Frank Cloos. He’d worked with Bernie two years back, at the psychiatric wing of Mobile Regional Hospital. Bernie consulted there two days a week. Mr. Cloos had been an MHT, mental health technician.”
“What did Mr. Cloos look like?”
“About your size, I guess. Dark hair with a touch of red. Piercing eyes. A very good-looking young man.”
“You said young?”
“Mid-twenties, I’d guess. A mature bearing.”
“What else did you talk about?”
A pause. I heard the grandfather clock bonging in the distance.
“That was a sad part. Mr. Cloos had been out of town for a while, business. He didn’t know about Bernie, couldn’t understand why his phone was disconnected. There aren’t any other Rudolnicks in the phone directory, so he came here.”
“He didn’t know Bernie was deceased?”
“It was the one moment I thought I’d made a mistake by letting him inside my house. When I told Mr. Cloos what happened, well, he seemed to disappear inside himself. He closed his eyes. His hands grabbed his pant legs, his knuckles turned white. It seemed like, like…”
I heard her struggling for words.
“What, Ms. Rudolnick?”
