would be badly hurt today. But here you two are, feeling no pain.”
“My back is a little sore,” Wade said. “Does that count?”
“That’s what happens when you engage in rigorous activity with your lower back,” Fallon said, giving Mandy a look. She looked right back at him. “My point is, what the moon and the stars tell you don’t mean shit here. You know why?”
“Because it’s ridiculous to think that the alignment of the planets impacts human behavior?” Charlotte asked.
Fallon looked her in the eye. “Because I control the universe on these streets, honey.”
“How much control do you have over this?” Wade took the photograph of the dead woman out of his shirt pocket and set it faceup on the counter next to his pie.
Fallon glanced at it. “I saw you out at the factory today, cleaning up the mess.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing,” Wade said.
“Then what were you doing?”
“I was processing the crime scene and gathering evidence.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because a woman was murdered, Duke, and I’m going to arrest the son of a bitch who did it.”
“You are?” Fallon asked.
“I am,” Wade said.
“What the hell for?”
Wade tapped the photograph with his finger. “Her.”
Mandy turned the picture around and looked at it. “Do you know who she is?”
“Not yet.” Wade picked up the picture and held it out to Fallon. “Maybe you know somebody who does.”
“Maybe.” Fallon took the picture from Wade and stuck it in his pocket. “What about the other women?”
“What others?” Wade asked.
“The crack whores. Maybe five or six the last couple of years. I didn’t see anybody processing the crime scene and gathering evidence for them,” Fallon said. “The only time I’ve seen that happen before down here is when the bodies on the ground were cops.”
“Things have changed,” Wade said. “I live here now.”
“Maybe that’s why your horoscope didn’t come true today,” Fallon said. “But you never know what will happen tomorrow.”
He smiled at Charlotte, acknowledged Pete with a respectful nod, and walked out of the restaurant with Timo.
Wade turned back to his plate and took a bite out of his pie.
“Do you know anything about other women being murdered?” Wade asked Mandy.
“No, but people get killed here all the time,” she said. “Most of them for crossing Duke Fallon.”
“Makes me wonder why he’s inviting me to investigate,” Wade said.
“Maybe he’s daring you to,” Charlotte said.
“It’s not that,” Pete said, his voice raspy. “Duke grew up here. This is his home. Nobody wants to find a corpse in their front yard.”
Wade worked on his pie and mulled things over for a few moments. Neither one of the women minded Wade’s silence. Charlotte had some thoughts of her own to consider, and Mandy had customers to serve.
After a time, the bell rang over the door again.
The new customer was a heavyset woman in her late forties with bloodshot eyes, tear?streaked cheeks, and a large mole under her left ear. She walked up to Wade. She was shaking.
“My name is Ella Littleton,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “The girl you found, her name is Glory. She’s my daughter.”
Chapter sixteen
They took Ella to a booth in the back, got her a cup of coffee, and began by asking her for basic details, like her address and phone number, and her family history.
In Wade’s experience, going over the dull, mundane details had a calming effect on emotional individuals and helped them focus.
Ella told them that she’d lived in Darwin Gardens all her life. She and her three children lived in a bungalow in Belle Gardens, a few blocks from Mrs. Copeland’s place. Her children each had a different father, none of whom stuck around, which she saw as a blessing, since they were all shitbags, anyway.
She got by on welfare and by doing laundry for single men in the neighborhood she called “useless trash too dumb to know how to wash their own socks,” not unlike her own sons.
“Glory’s older brother is in prison for armed robbery. Her younger brother is in the gangs, so it’s only a matter of time before he’s in prison himself or in the dirt. But Glory isn’t like them,” Ella said, sitting across from Wade and Charlotte, who took notes. “She’s a good girl. A hard worker. Cleaning houses in Havenhurst every day and offices downtown every night.”
“When did she leave the house yesterday?” Wade asked.
“I don’t know, maybe eight. She took the bus to clean for the Burdetts. They’re rich folks, good people, bought her some nice clothes so sometimes she can work at their parties.”
“But you don’t actually know if she did or not,” Charlotte said.
“I heard her leave, but I didn’t get up,” Ella said. “I wish I had.”
“When does she usually get home?”
“After she’s done cleaning the offices, around midnight,” Ella said. “But she didn’t come home last night.”
“Has that ever happened before?” Charlotte asked.
Ella gave Charlotte a hard look. “She always comes home. She’s a good girl.”
“I’m sure she was,” Wade said. “But even good girls have boyfriends.”
Ella shook her head adamantly. “I told you, Glory is a good girl. She was getting out. She wasn’t supposed to die here.”
She looked down into her coffee cup and started to cry.
Wade decided not to press Ella any further for now. He could circle back to her later if he needed more information. So he expressed his condolences and promised to do everything within his power to find out what happened to her daughter.
The two officers got up and walked out, leaving her with her sorrow.
Wade let Charlotte drive again. It gave him more time to think.
“Did Fallon tell Mrs. Littleton to talk with us?” Charlotte asked.
“She wouldn’t have spoken to us without his OK. I get the feeling nothing goes on down here without it.”
“Except the women getting killed,” Charlotte said. “Do you think he really cares about them?”
“I know he cares about his authority being ignored and the message it sends if he lets anyone get away with it.”
“The same could be said about you.”
“Maybe that’s why Duke and I get along so well,” Wade said.
A yellow taxicab sped past them in the opposite direction, heading toward downtown. The light on his roof indicated that he had a fare, but his backseat appeared to be empty.
“He’s speeding,” Charlotte said.
“I don’t blame him,” Wade said.
“It’s brazen,” she said. “He sped right by us and we’re the police.”
“The law says he has to accept a fare to anywhere in the city. But now that he’s dropped off his passenger he wants to get out of here alive and with all of his money.”
