down at Rosie, who was sitting by the kitchen counter, looking hopefully upward. Spike closed the door after Lloyd. He went to the counter and opened a cookie jar and gave a dog biscuit to Rosie.
“Well, don’t you?” Jenn said. “Don’t you believe me?”
Rosie chewed up her dog biscuit. Sunny reached down to pat her. Then she looked up at Jenn.
“The question’s too hard for me, at the moment,” Sunny said.
1 7 4
39
Jesse talked with Conrad Lutz in the coffee shop of the Langham Hotel.
“You’re still around.”
“Yeah,” Lutz said. “The family wanted me to sort of stay around until there was some sort of closure on the case.”
“They paying the tab?” Jesse said.
“They are,” Lutz said.
“At the Langham.”
“Well, I’m already here,” Lutz said. “You know?”
“Nice duty,” Jesse said.
“Sure.”
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
Lutz stirred some sugar into his coffee.
“You didn’t mention a prior connection to Weeks,” Jesse said.
“How prior?” Lutz said.
“You busted him for public indecency in White Marsh, Maryland, in 1987.”
Lutz nodded slowly.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Why didn’t you mention it?” Jesse said.
“I was supposed to be his bodyguard. I wasn’t supposed to be going around telling tales on the poor bastard.”
Jesse nodded.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“I was with the Baltimore County police, patrolling the White Marsh Mall. A couple of women came up to me and complained of what was happening in a car in the parking lot. I checked it out and it was Weeks and some kid doing the nasty in his car. I’d have chased them off and let it slide, but the two ladies raised hell and insisted I arrest them for defiling the mall parking lot or something. So I took them in.”
“How’d he handle it?” Jesse said.
“He was embarrassed,” Lutz said. “But I think he knew he could fix it. He pointed out that the girl was of age, and then he started asking me about being a cop and did I see much of this and that sort of thing.”
Jesse nodded. A waitress came by and freshened their coffee.
