“To hook up with Derek. We’re working on something important and I can’t leave him twisting out there.”
“You sure that’s where you’re going?”
“Look: Stella wants to go home. You need to find her parents. She’ll cooperate.”
“I know what to do. You don’t have to tell me, because I’ve been doing this for a long time. I hired you, remember?”
“There’s a plainclothes in the ER; he’ll be looking to talk to you. I didn’t give him anything, understand?”
“You don’t want me to talk to the police.”
“Not yet. You’ll know when the time’s right.”
“Why don’t you want me to talk to them now?”
“Take care of Stella,” said Quinn.
He put his arms around Tracy and kissed her on her lips. He took in the clean smell of her hair. They broke their embrace, and Tracy stepped back and pointed her finger at Quinn.
“Keep your cell on, Terry. I want to know where you are.”
She watched him jog down the sidewalk toward a line of cabs idling near the main entrance of the hospital. She turned and walked into the ER.
Quinn got into the backseat of a purple Ford. The driver was talking on a cell phone and did not turn his head.
“Warder Street in Park View, off Georgia.”
The African looked at Quinn in his rearview but kept talking on his cell. He did not touch the transmission arm coming off the steering column.
Quinn flipped open his badge case, reached over the front seat, and held the case in front of the cabby’s face.
“Haul ass,” said Quinn.
The cabby pulled down on the tree and fed the Ford gas.
“LYDELL, it’s Derek.”
“Derek, where you at?”
“Down near my office. Can you hear me?”
“Sure.”
Strange sat behind the wheel of his Caprice, parked along the curb on Warder Street, facing east. He was a half block down from the row house where Charles White and, he expected, Garfield Potter and the boy with the cornrows lived. Strange’s binoculars hung around his neck.
“Lydell, I wanted to get up with you. I don’t think me and Terry are gonna make it to practice tonight.”
“Why not?”
“We got a big surveillance thing we’re working on. Can’t break it; you know how that goes.”
“That’s a lot of boys for me and Dennis to handle.”
“Call Lionel, and Lamar Williams; those two know the drills and the plays as good as we do. If you don’t have their phone numbers, call Janine.”
“Yeah, okay. But what’s up with this surveillance thing? Thought you’d be out talking to Lorenze Wilder’s associates today.”
“We been doing that, too,” said Strange, looking at the empty row house porch. “But nothin’ yet.”
“Well,
“Yeah?”
“Woman called in, trying to get some of that reward money. Said she was out late one night, a few nights before the killings. Some male friends of hers was in a crap game got robbed by three young men, over there in Park Morton. One of the young men pulled a gun on one of her friends, man named Ray Boyer. Used it like a hammer and broke Boyer’s nose. Woman says the one with the gun matched the description of the artist’s drawing on the posters we put up in the neighborhood. And get this: She says the gun was a short-barreled revolver. You know that we’ve identified one of the murder weapons as a snub-nosed three fifty-seven.”
“Could’ve been a thirty-eight that boy pulled on that crap game. Could’ve been anything.”
“Could’ve been. But this is too much of a coincidence to leave alone.”
“I don’t suppose the gunslinger left his name.”
“Matter of fact, this knucklehead did say his name. But she can’t remember it. Admits she was too intoxicated and up on weed, and scared in the bargain. We’re out looking for Ray Boyer right now. He didn’t show up to his job today, so we’re visiting the bars he likes to go to. Hoping that he’ll remember this boy’s name. Man’s a Vietnam veteran, so I’m thinking he’ll be able to identify the caliber of the gun as well.”
“Sounds promising.”
“Just a feeling, Derek, but it looks to me like we’re gonna make an arrest on this today.”
“Keep me posted on it, you don’t mind. You got my cell number, right?”
“I got it.”
