“Weasel was a regular here for a year or so,” the man continued. “Then, poof!, he was gone again. Ain’t seen him since.”
“Why remember him?” Brett said.
The man grinned. “Oh, it’s hard to forget ol’ Weasel. Because he didn’t just like the skag. He liked women. Liked ’em a whole lot. Too much. Know what I mean?” He shook his head, gave an exhalation of combined disgust and morbid humor. “Those gals were never the same after they met the Weasel.”
Chapter Seven
He could smell the losers from a block away. Literally.
Finley had the Accord’s windows sealed tight, engine running, a trickle of air-conditioning taking the edge off. But even in his protective bubble, even from his position parked on the opposite side of the road, a block away from the end of the line, the stink of the homeless queued up outside the Morrison Mission was apparent. Not constant, though. It hit him every few seconds, out of nowhere, pungent sneak attacks.
He was used to dealing with losers in his line of work, but those he encountered had some money, a place to live. They didn’t exist in their own filth.
He angled the vents down. Might help a bit.
Why the hell was he here?
Scratch that.
He knew why he was here. He was here because Jonah Lund and the tall man were here.
But why were they here?
The mystery guy must have been another private investigator. The constant surveillance Finley’s employer had put upon Lund had shown that he hadn’t been in contact with his last investigator in weeks. It had seemed that Lund had given up on his search, even if he hadn’t given up in the press. Why, then, had he suddenly hired a new investigator?
The first two PIs had been locals, easily recognizable to Finley. But this guy—Finley had never seen him before.
An hour ago, when Finley had arrived outside Lund’s apartment, there had been a brief period before the two of them left and went to his Fiero. Finley had seen a tall man in dark clothes—a dark gray pair of slacks, black sport coat, light gray shirt beneath. Dark, choppy hair. Angular face. Someone completely unknown to Finley.
And when the Fiero took off, Finley assumed he knew where it was going. He was wrong. He’d followed at a safe distance through progressively deteriorating environs until they ended up at the Morrison Mission.
Lund and his investigator were at the right kind of place, but nowhere near where they actually needed to be.
Interesting.
But quite confusing.
Finley would continue to follow. No need to call the boss yet. Not until this made more sense.
Lund and his companion had walked down the line, questioning several of the slobs, finally landing a talker who’d been standing by a lamppost. The conversation concluded, and the bum walked off. Lund and the tall man went back to the Fiero, which was parked across the street, and got in. Brake lights. It moved.
Finley put the Accord into gear and followed.
Chapter Eight
Silence had thought they would be alone, but it turned out he wasn’t the only one with the idea of watching the press conference from the top of the three-story parking garage. The city of Orlando was even more transfixed by the ongoing story of Amber Lund’s disappearance than he’d thought.
A small crowd had gathered along the garage’s north-side parapet, looking down upon the larger crowd at the Orlando Police Headquarters below—a semi-circle of maybe a hundred people, reporters and photographers in the front and citizens behind, who filled a plaza in front of the main tower. They were spread around a podium loaded with microphones.
Vehicles occupied all the spaces on the top floor of the garage, but the rubber parking blocks sat about a yard off the parapet, giving plenty of room for the crowd to form. Beside Silence, Jonah had covered his head with the hood of his Baja jacket, concealing as much of his face as possible. Under the hood, he’d also thrown on a baseball cap and a pair of Ray-Bans for good measure. His hands were in the jacket’s front pocket-pouch, and he stole quick, furtive glances at the people on either side of them. So far, no one seemed to have recognized him.
The sun was already breaking through the gray cover that had recently formed, little streaks of bright blue here and there. A faint drizzle didn’t so much fall from the sky but drifted down. Speeding traffic hissed by on Interstate 4, which was adjacent to the police complex and the parking garage, elevated on mammoth concrete columns.
The sprawling OPD complex comprised several massive buildings, stately yet plain, the cautiously planned beauty of twentieth-century bureaucracy. A tower rose above the other buildings, one that Jonah had said once served as a jail as well. You could see inmates looking down at you from the windows, he’d said. The landscaping that flowed through the complex was less self-conscious than the buildings, all bushes and flowers and palm trees and luscious green lawns.
A few uniformed cops kept the crowd at a distance from the podium, behind which were three men and a woman, all in business wear, several feet back.
One of the men approached the podium. Silence remembered him from the photos he’d seen that morning, before taking the private jet the Watchers had arranged for him to Orlando. Carlton Stokes. Earlier Silence had noted that Stokes looked like a cranky police lieutenant character from a TV show or a 1980s cop movie. Now, in flesh-and-blood, his features seemed softer, and he evoked a classic sitcom dad.
“That’s Carlton,” Jonah said, unaware of Silence’s familiarity.
Behind Carlton, another man went to the microphone as well but stopped a few feet short, hands going behind his back, head lowered respectfully. He was a bit younger than Carlton, though his beard was mostly white. Aside from a slight gut, he was in good shape. Silence could sense the sadness in his eyes, his lowered face.
“Who’s that?”
