come to think about it.
A pair of teenaged boys raced by on skateboards, testing new moves.
She said, “I don’t know why you want this-him going over to Sheriff’s and all, but that’s what you got.” She informed him, “Metro used to archive the traffic ‘cites’ on microfiche. Now it’s all digitized.”
LaMoia flipped pages while Janise enjoyed the coffee.
She said out of the side of her mouth, “Double-check stub number thirty-five MN seven thirty-two.”
In trying to convert LaMoia to a love of jazz, Boldt had once told him that good music was as much about what was left out-what wasn’t there-as the notes one heard. A true connoisseur of music learned to listen for what was missing. To LaMoia, that advice had been an oxymoron until the moment he turned to the citation Janise had mentioned. Prair’s citation records from two years earlier were missing an entry for 35MN-732.
“You’re shitting me,” he let slip. The copy of 35MN-733, the next in sequence, carried ghostly images familiar to any cop who’d ever used a “carbonless” ticket book-the ballpoint pen impression from the missing carbon of 732 had carried through to 733, the result of forgetting to insert a divider ahead of the next record. The same thing happened to LaMoia with his check-book. It took a moment for his eyes to decipher one entry from the next. The fainter impressions slowly began to stand out in his mind’s eye.
A minute later an excited LaMoia was on his cell phone to the Department of Licensing, reciting a tag number to a bored bureaucrat on the other end. “I need it A-SAP,” he said.
Janise Meyer pulled the coffee away from her lips and said, “Damn, Cowboy, you get any more worked up, you gonna blow a valve or something.”
LaMoia made eyes at her, not wanting to speak with the open line.
She said, “What’s so special about a missing citation, other than it’s against regs to tear one from a book?”
The woman on the phone calmly read the name of the owner of the vehicle back to him. LaMoia thanked her and disconnected the call.
“Dana Eaton,” he said, his brain locked on the name.
On hearing the name, Janise spilled the coffee down her front and wiped it away quickly, cursing him. “The Dana Eaton?”
There wasn’t a cop on SPD that didn’t know that name-a name beaten into the entire population by a media feeding frenzy.
Janise yanked the pages out of LaMoia’s lap and flipped back and forth, checking the dates of the traffic citations immediately before and after the one that was missing. “Can’t be right,” she said. “This is like two months before the shooting.” It took a moment to sink in. “Are you telling me he knew that woman?”
LaMoia couldn’t get a word out. He’d sensed it all along; only now could he actually prove it hadn’t been a “good shooting” after all.
Nathan Prair was going to jail.
Five Minutesfrom Prosperity
Mario-if there even was a Mario-had found some cheap real estate that still remained in striking distance for delivery downtown. The building looked older than God. The neighborhood, no stranger to police patrols, was a favorite for gang activity, a warehouse and light industrial region in decay over a decade, since software had overcome hardware in the bid for the local economy. Brick and broken asphalt played host to the rusted carcasses of stripped cars. Five minutes from prosperity.
Mario’s had a takeout counter, two cooks, four runners, a pair of enormous ovens, and alternative rock playing at dangerous decibels over shredded speakers. The Rastafarian currently engaged with a phone order lifted a finger indicating he’d be right with her. Hanging up, he barked across the small room to a skinny woman in her late teens. The girl wore too many earrings to count. The wanna-be-a-gangsta white boy next to her, his arms covered in the purple lace of spiderwebs and barbed-wire tattoos, his hands in disposable gloves-thank God! — seeded a pie with sliced mushrooms.
She let her shield wallet fall open, displaying her creds. “Is there a pregnant girl upstairs?”
“Could be,” the Rastafarian answered. He hadn’t had time to study her shield, so he impressed her when he said, “What’s a lieutenant doing on the street?”
“You the landlord?”
“Not hardly. Manager is all. You the Apartment Police?”
This was a game to him.
“Margaret.” Matthews said. “Her name is Margaret.”
“Is that right?”
“I’m here to give her a leg up.”
“I just bet you are.”
“When was the last time City Health stopped by for an inspection?”
“Room two,” he said. “It’s on the left.”
“What about the deputy sheriff?”
“Who?”
“His car’s around the block.”
“So he’s getting a hummer from one of the charmers in the hood. What’s new?”
She studied his face and found herself believing him. In her mind, Prair had to be hooked up with Margaret’s situation-either as a friend or the enemy. She wasn’t eager to run into him. He was good at staying hidden and out of the way, and she kept that in mind as well.
“Who’s in the other rooms up there?” she asked.
He eyed her suspiciously.
She said, “Who am I going to run into in the hall?”
“There’s no one going to throw shots at you, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
She produced a twenty from her purse and placed it on the counter. She said, “Hold the anchovies,” and made the guy smile. Lousy teeth. She made it forty, total. “Anyone up there with Margaret?”
“I don’t even know that she’s up there, lady.”
“Within the realm of possibility,” she suggested.
“Listen, they think I don’t know, but there’re three of them sharing what’s barely big enough for one. Young girls.”
Matthews withdrew her gun from the purse and chambered a round. It all came down to a show of power on the streets.
You were either a player or not. She understood the psychology, though lacked some of the courage. She said, “I don’t need anyone crashing my party. Should I give you a minute to let anyone know, or what?”
“People are in and out of there all the time, Lieutenant.” The way he emphasized her rank, she knew he’d made her for the desk jockey she was. He said, “You do what you gotta do.”
The stairway entrance to the apartments was outside the takeout door and to the left. She glanced across the street to where Gaynes had parked the car. In theory, Gaynes was making every attempt to raise Prair. Matthews bootlegged her weapon on the way up the dingy and dirty stairwell, choking on the smell of urine. In situations like this-tenement busts-it was surprise that cost cops their lives. Reaction time proved longer than the thought process. Twelve-year-olds with water pistols took a bullet.
The upstairs hallway was empty and dimly lit. Either her man downstairs had cleared the area, or she’d gotten lucky. The gun felt an inappropriate way to greet Margaret, but it wouldn’t feel right in the handbag, either. She let it fall to her side and knocked. “Margaret, it’s me,” she announced. Either that registered or not, she wasn’t calling out any more details.
She heard footsteps approaching the door and found herself relieved that Margaret could walk, was not prone on the bed delivering the baby prematurely. For this had been her most recent thought: contractions. Margaret about to give birth.
