'Nope.'
Across Berkeley Street from my office the tourists were posing with the bear outside of FAO Schwarz. The coffee shop on the first floor must have changed the grease in the frialator. There was a clean smell to it as it drifted up from the alley vent.
'They ever establish how Ellis got out to Pemberton?' Hawk said.
'The eyewitnesses said he was driving an old pink Cadillac.'
'Yeah, that's what we drive,' Hawk said. 'They ever find the car?'
'Nope.'
'They get the license number?'
'Nope.'
'But there was one registered to Ellis.'
'Nope.'
Hawk ate the last scallop. I turned back to the desk and took a healthful bite of coleslaw.
'So,' Hawk said, 'Alves borrows or steals a car one night, an inconspicuous old pink Caddy. He drives out to Pemberton in his inconspicuous car, where there ain't no black folks, and the cops pay attention to any that they see. He cruises around in his inconspicuous car until he spots a white girl on a busy street, drags her into his inconspicuous car in front of witnesses, drives her somewhere, takes off her clothes and strangles her, though he maybe doesn't rape her, dumps her body in the middle of the Pemberton Campus, and rides on back home with her clothes and the aforesaid ligature in his inconspicuous car, so in case the cops stop him he can incriminate himself.'
'He could have dropped the clothes off in a Dumpster somewhere.'
'Why take them at all?' Hawk said.
'I can't imagine,' I said. 'Ellis has spent half his life in the criminal justice system. He'd know better than to be caught with stuff like that.'
'He'd leave them right where they fell,' Hawk said.
'Sure, unless there was something about them that would incriminate him.'
'Like what?' Hawk said.
'If she fought him enough to draw blood.'
'But she didn't.'
'According to the coroner's report there was no blood under her fingernails,' I said. 'No fend-off bruises on her arms. In fact, there's no sign of her putting up any resistance.'
'And Ellis didn't have a mark on him,' Hawk said.
'Maybe he took her to his home and undressed her there.'
'And then killed her and drove all the way back out to Pemberton with her dead in the car? Or drove her out naked in the car and killed her there?'
'Don't make any sense,' Hawk said.
'No, it doesn't.'
'So who would take the clothes?' Hawk said.
'Someone who didn't know what they were doing and panicked.'
'Don't sound like my man Ellis,' Hawk said.
'No, it doesn't.'
We were quiet. The scallops and coleslaw were gone. There was about one glass each left of the wine. Hawk picked up the bottle.
'Don't keep so good once it's opened,' he said.
'I know,' I said.
'Better finish it up,' Hawk said.
'We'd be fools not to,' I said.
Hawk poured out the wine, and we sat in the quiet office and looked out at the bright morning and finished it.
Chapter 23
THE MAROON CHEVY wagon that had picked up Beer Keg and his crew was registered to Bruce Parisi at an address in Arlington, near the Winchester line. I called Rita Fiore.
'Can you find out if a guy named Bruce Parisi, currently living on Hutchinson Road in Arlington, has a record.'
'Sure.'
'And, if he does, and I'll bet he does, get me whatever you can on him.'
