“There are a couple of Hispanic chicks working the corner at Seventh and Warwick,” another had offered when pressed, “but they ain’t no kids.”
“I don’t usually ask to see ID, you know what I mean?” another had snorted.
Evan rubbed his eyes and stood to stretch. His legs felt cramped and his shoulders stiff, and he thought a walk outside, even just around the courthouse, might be refreshing. He opened his door and noticed lights on in several of the other offices. He’d been so engrossed in his research that he hadn’t heard anyone else come in.
He stopped at Cal Henry’s door to chat for a moment, but left when Cal’s girlfriend called. Their verbal feuds were legendary, and Evan had witnessed more than enough of them in the past. He waved to Cal and continued on his way outside.
“You take care, Detective,” the guard at the door called to him, barely looking up.
“I’m just running out for a minute. I’ll be back.”
Evan stepped into the sun and shielded his eyes from the glare. He took a deep breath, and deciding he was as much in need of food as of exercise, he walked two blocks to Main Street, where he picked up lunch from the deli on the corner. He returned to the courthouse and took a seat on one of the benches on the front lawn and proceeded to eat his ham and cheese on rye while mentally replaying the conversations he’d had that morning, hoping to find some inadvertent comment that might lead him to something concrete.
Reluctantly, he had to admit he hadn’t missed anything the first time around. There’d been no slip of the tongue, nothing he could use as an excuse to call any of the men back to confirm. He rolled up his lunch trash in the bag it had come in and started toward the trash can when he heard someone calling his name.
“Hey, Joe,” he called back to his former partner, who was walking up the sidewalk with a large brown file folder under his arm.
“Evan. Good to see you.” Joe Sullivan met Evan in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What brings you in on a Saturday?”
Joe held up the file.
“I just got a call at home from Shelley Stern telling me this case is going to trial on Monday and she needed whatever materials I had that she didn’t have.” He shook his head. “How am I supposed to know what she has?”
“I’m going back in, want me to drop it off for you?”
“Nah, I’m going to need to talk to her anyway.”
Evan tossed his trash in the direction of the open can and missed.
“I see moving up to county detective hasn’t done anything to improve your aim,” Sullivan noted.
“It’ll take more than a new job to do that. What’s new in Lyndon?”
“Not much. Things have quieted down a lot since the slayer was brought in. Nice job Jackie did with that case, wasn’t it?”
“Nice job that
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Jackie had a lot of help from the FBI.”
“That’s not the way I heard it.”
Evan shook his head in disgust and waved to the guard, who was already on his way to unlock the door.
The two men went through the procedure to enter the building, then walked together down to the D.A.’s office. Joe stopped off at Shelley Stern’s office-the third door on the left-and Evan continued on to his office. Fifteen minutes later, he looked up to find Joe in the doorway.
“So you working all day or what?”
“Most of it. I’d hoped to finish up early enough to make a trip down to Annie’s for the rest of the weekend, but I guess that’s not going to happen.”
“What are you working on?” Joe asked. “That the other killer case?”
“What other killer case?” Evan looked up from the file.
“Word around is that the Slayer didn’t pop those last three girls, the Hispanic ones.” Joe came in and plopped himself in the seat near the door.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Just around. Don’t remember where, exactly.”
“Good thing it wasn’t supposed to have been kept under wraps or anything,” Evan muttered.
“So if you’re not going to see the old lady, want to meet up later for a few beers and a burger down at Taps? I’m meeting a couple of the guys at six.”
“Rosemary is letting you out alone on a Saturday night?”
“She’s off with her sister this weekend. She and Joey. They’ll be gone through tomorrow afternoon.”
“How’s he doing, your son?”
“He had a better year in school this year.” Joe nodded. “He had a rough time for a while. You know, he’s small for his age, isn’t real good at sports. It’s tough for a boy like that. We finally did find something he liked doing, though, so he’s doing better.”
Evan was about to ask what that thing was when his cell phone rang. He checked the number and found it to be one of the men for whom he’d previously left a message.
“Sorry, Joe, I’ve got to take this.”
“Hey, no problem. Stop down at Taps later, if you can. We’ll all be there. It would be great if you could join us. Like old times. If not, we’ll get together sometime soon.”
“Sounds like a plan. Thanks.”
Joe waved and left the office as Evan answered his call.
“Yeah, Manny, thanks for calling me back. I appreciate it. Listen, about that incident a few years back… yeah, that one. Hey, I hate to bring that up, but there’s a rumor going around the D.A.’s office that they’re thinking about bringing back that three-strikes-and-jail-time thing again, and I just wanted to see if you were keeping clean…”
It was almost eight by the time Evan finished the last of his calls. He was starving and for a moment considered Joe’s offer. Then he looked at the pages of notes he’d made, all the information he wanted to enter into the computer before Monday came around, and decided he’d do takeout on the way home instead. He’d enjoy a night out with his old friends and coworkers, he acknowledged as he packed up a few files to take home. They had a good bunch of guys down there in the Lyndon Police Department, and there were times when he missed working with them, missed the companionship and the familiarity of having the same partner every day.
Well, maybe he’d have time for a beer or two. He turned off the overhead light on his way out of the office and dialed Joe’s cell phone as he walked up the steps. When there was no answer after six rings, Evan disconnected the call without leaving voice mail. Tonight he was tired and had a lot of reading to do, none of it light, he told himself as he waved good night to the guard, so it was just as well he hadn’t been able to hook up with Joe. He’d catch up with the guys later in the week.
Maybe by then, Joe would have remembered where he’d heard about the second killer. The one whose existence wasn’t supposed to have been discussed outside the D.A.’s office.
He wondered who’d been talking, and how the information had made its way to the Lyndon PD.
He stopped for pizza on the way home and ate standing up at the kitchen counter while he listened to his voice mail. Then he locked up the house and took his files to his second-floor office, where he read until he passed out. Sunday morning he showered, shaved, and started all over again, making calls and taking notes, crossing names off one list and adding them to another.
At four in the afternoon, he looked out the back window at the dirt patch that was Annie’s garden and hoped that by this time next week, they’d be together, working on it. He put the thought aside and went back to his phone calls. He worked until midnight, then closed up shop and went to bed.
At four o’clock Monday morning, the phone rang, and he answered it groggily.
“Crosby? Sargeant Crocker, Broeder police department. Got someone here who wants to talk to you.”
There was a soft rustle as the phone was passed from one person to another.
“Hey, Detective, Perry Jelinik, remember me?”
“Sure.” Evan pulled himself up onto one elbow and tried to stifle a yawn. “I busted you for possession two years ago.”
“And four years before that.”
“You get picked up more recently by someone else, Jelinik?”
“Yeah, actually, I was.” There was a pause. “I was wondering if you could help me out with that. Talk to the arresting officer or the D.A. for me or something.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well, I hear you’re looking for an address…”
19
After two solid days of reviewing police reports to prepare a profile for a D.A. in Florida, Annie was almost happy to be going back into the office again. She felt as if she’d been in solitary confinement since she arrived home on Saturday morning. She was trying to recall when she had ever welcomed a Monday quite as much when she heard her fax beeping to signal that something was being sent to her machine.
