Evidence of Murder

She had almost said Don’t you have a partner? Before she remembered that no, he didn’t, that his last partner had been shot in a bank robbery, the partner he had resented more than liked, the partner she had been engaged to marry, and since then he had managed to circumvent all efforts of the department to assign him another. And she remembered something else, something that had existed in another time, another life-sympathy for someone other than herself.

“Okay,” she said. “But I’m ordering lobster. And the Brie plate.”

CHAPTER 2

George Panapoulos-aka Georgie Porgie-worked out of a storefront on West Twenty-fifth, just two blocks from the West Side Market, sandwiched in between a bail bondsman and a used-appliance dealer. He had tried to add a splash of color to the grimy street, however, spelling out BEAUTIFUL GIRLZ! in six-inch-high fluorescent pink letters along the window. The inside smelled of bug spray and cigarette smoke, but the receptionist lived up to the advertising, a petite blond in spandex, her eyes a crystal blue and slightly unfocused.

“I’m here to see Georgie,” Frank told her in the commanding tone he’d practiced on Theresa since she was four. She’d stopped listening at six, but it still worked on other people.

Heavy footsteps made the thin walls tremble, and Georgie appeared with a cigarette in one hand and a stack of envelopes in the other. Theresa had expected a stereotype, a used-car salesman with lots of gold jewelry, but George Panapoulos looked more like an aging college student. He had neatly trimmed black hair and wore a maroon sweatshirt with jeans. The only concessions to flash were a stylish goatee and a gold band with one fat diamond on his right hand. He only grinned when he saw Frank, and then his eye fell on Theresa. Like her cousin had said earlier, he opened his mouth to make a comment, then apparently thought better of it. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I need to ask you about one of your ex-employees. In private.”

“I’m a little busy right now-”

Frank waited.

“-but I’ll take time for anything that concerns my girls. Come on back.” He turned away from them without hesitation and led the way through a narrow hallway with stained wallpaper.

His office continued to work against stereotype. Papers, manila folders, and pictures of girls covered the desk, the bookshelf, and a battered credenza. More pictures covered the walls-girls of every race, size, and hair color, including a few not found in nature; girls in bikinis or less; girls in full-length gowns-pinned up willy-nilly with thumbtacks or even straight pins. It took Theresa a full minute to find Jillian’s. Theresa now believed in Georgie’s legitimacy-the deluge of young girls seemed no worse than the average magazine or group of billboards, and no way would a pimp keep this much paperwork.

The man no longer in question threw himself into a desk chair covered in 1970s orange vinyl and motioned for them to sit. His guest chairs were the only two uncluttered surfaces in the room. “Now don’t tell me one of my girls is in trouble, because I won’t believe it. They’re all clean. I’m legit now.”

“So you told me,” Frank said.

“It’s worth it, let me tell you. It’s worth the taxes and the forms and having to send out those friggin’ W-2s every January. I can sleep at night, I don’t have to take my gun into the shower with me, and I don’t have to call my lawyer every time someone like you shows up at my door.”

“I’m happy that you’ve seen the light.”

Georgie glanced at Theresa; again, he seemed on the verge of asking who she was, and then didn’t. Her cousin had been right. Georgie Porgie didn’t know what to do with her. She perused the photos of girls with lots of makeup and not enough body fat, and ignored him.

“So what are you here about?” he asked again. A phone rang in the lobby, abruptly cut off as the receptionist snatched it up.

“Jillian.”

“Which Jillian?”

“How many you got?”

“Three.” A dented space heater in the corner kicked on, pushing out puny waves of warm air to do what they could against the heavy dampness, and he raised his voice to be heard over the rattling heater. “Funny, come to think of it. It’s not a common name these days.”

“Jillian Kovacic.”

“You mean Perry.”

Frank absently patted the pack of cigarettes in his front shirt pocket; the heavily nicotined smell of the place must have been tempting him. “So you do know which Jillian I mean.”

“She was Perry here. She didn’t officially quit until she got him up the aisle. Jillian hedges her bets.”

“Didn’t jump ship until she had the lifeboat in position?” Frank prodded.

“Jillian’s not dumb. Besides, she seemed to think her new hubby was going to be a big shot soon and didn’t want her job distracting people from his.”

“You didn’t care that she got married?”

“Why would I care?”

“Maybe Jillian was more than an employee.”

“Yeah, so I killed her because I was jealous?” Georgie shook his head and pulled a cigarette from a pack on his desk, looking less like a college student with every minute as both face and voice lost their phony friendliness. “Listen, I’ve got forty-six girls working for me and Jillian is by no means the hottest one. I expected her to quit once she didn’t need the dough no more. I couldn’t believe she came back after having the baby. She lost that weight quick, though, I’ll say that for her.”

Frank let him wind down. “What makes you think she’s been killed?”

Georgie didn’t hesitate. “Her husband. He’s called here twice a day for the past three days asking if I have heard from her, and insisting that she would never just take off and not tell anyone where she went. And he’s right about that. Jillian was pretty reliable. That’s why I kept her on the payroll even though she couldn’t work once the baby began to show.”

Frank gave no sign of accepting this explanation, though it sounded reasonable to Theresa. Instead, he asked, “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill her?”

“Sure. Her husband.”

“Why would her husband kill her?”

“Spoken like the true bachelor you are, Patrick. Husbands don’t need a reason. Neither do wives. Marriage is enough to turn anyone homicidal.”

“Speaking from experience? As I recall, that one girl thought you were going to marry her. What was her name? Debbie? Destiny?”

“Diana. I was, too. I still miss her every day,” Georgie said with patent innocence. But his body had tensed until the cords in his neck bulged under the skin. He flicked open a silver lighter and thumbed the roller against the flint with more force than necessary.

“She had cigarette burns up and down her right arm,” Frank added.

The man took a deep puff, then said, “That’s awful,” with no inflection whatsoever.

Theresa felt a chill that had nothing to do with the space heater kicking off. What was she doing here? Her job was to look at a body or a room or a piece of clothing and discern the relevant facts about those things, to give the investigators what they needed to catch people like Georgie. It wasn’t her job to sit there with Georgie. People weren’t like inanimate objects. People lied.

On the other hand, she might try to observe something useful. She didn’t dare interrupt Frank. She’d started talking in the middle of his guitar playing one day and he’d given her the cold shoulder for a month, which, at thirteen, seemed like a year.

Georgie’s hair had thinned a bit on top, revealing a birthmark and an S-shaped scar near the temple. His pupils didn’t seem to jump when they traveled from Frank to her and back again, which should mean he had no illegal drugs in his system. Nicotine stained his left-hand fingers, but he held the glowing butt in his right hand.