“The file you wanted. The Lamar case, yeah.”
I should have been grateful. I was. Honest. But-
“It’s awfully skinny.” I scrunched up my nose and gave the folder another look. “How can all the information about an entire murder investigation be in such a skinny folder?”
Quinn’s expression reminded me a whole bunch of the one on Sammi’s face before she walked away. “ ‘Thank you’ might be a more appropriate response,” he said.
“Thank you. Why is the file so skinny?”
His lips puckered. Not in the good way they did when he kissed me. “This is what’s called the basic file,” he explained. “There’s one of these kept in the Homicide Unit for every case that’s ever been investigated. It’s not supposed to leave the Justice Center.”
“Thank you.” This time I meant it.
Quinn sloughed it off. “I figured no one else was going to be looking for the file. Not on a murder that old. Especially when someone was tried and convicted. You just going to stand there? Or are you going to take a look?”
I shook away my disappointment and went to stand in the shade of the mausoleum. Quinn came along. “Basic file,” he said, flipping it open. “It tells you-”
“The basics.”
“That’s right. Who was murdered, when the call first came in, who was interviewed, who was convicted.”
“I know who was convicted.” I leaned closer for a better look. Not such a bad thing, considering that Quinn was wearing Flavio aftershave, my favorite. When he left my apartment that morning, he was dressed in the navy suit he’d worn to dinner the night before. But he must have stopped home somewhere along the way. His suit was one I’d never seen before. Grey, with pinstripes that were far more subtle than the ones on the suit that Lamar wore. His French-cuffed shirt was a shade of blue that matched the sky overhead, his dusty blue tie was a box pattern of darker and lighter blues, tans, and gray.
I leaned a little nearer. “You got this file for me fast.”
One corner of his mouth pulled into a smile. “Told you I was a man of my word. You wanted what you wanted, I wanted what I wanted, and once I got it…”
I knew better than to go down that road. The last thing I needed was for my teammates-or Greer-to find me looking starry-eyed with Quinn around. Or worse, giving in to the temptation of getting nice and close and reminding him that there was more where that came from, and next time, he wouldn’t have to get me a file to get some.
That was not the kind of publicity the restoration needed, and it would certainly make my favorite Homicide detective less than happy. With that in mind, I took the folder out of his hands and read it over.
“The victim was Vera Blaine. She was twenty-two.” Seeing the information laid out in black and white made me queasy. “He never told me who was killed, or mentioned that she was so young.”
“He?”
I shook myself out of my thoughts and found Quinn with his head cocked, studying me.
“He. The guy who filled out the papers in Lamar’s cemetery file. You know, the ones that mentioned that Lamar might have been wrongly accused. I just assumed it was a he. And look”-changing the subject was a much better tactic that getting fixated on the fact that my information was coming from the dead guy who’d been convicted of the murder-“it says she was killed at the Lake View Motel in Cleveland. Ever hear of the place?”
Quinn shook his head. “I only hang around in places where there’s trouble. Maybe no one’s been killed there lately.”
“Or maybe the place doesn’t exist anymore.” I read over the address. Even I knew it wasn’t the best part of town. “Twenty-five years is a long time. The motel is probably gone.”
I read the next section of the report. “It looks like the cops interviewed a whole lot of people. Some guy named Steve Ganley, for one. It says here he was Vera Blaine’s boyfriend.”
“And it also says that there’s not one shred of doubt that your guy, Jefferson Lamar, committed the murder. See?” Quinn had obviously been through the file before he came to Monroe Street. He knew what he was looking for. “Lamar didn’t have an alibi. Not one he could substantiate, anyway. The victim worked for him at the Central State Correctional Facility. She was his secretary.”
“Which doesn’t mean he killed her.”
“Of course not.” He took the file out of my hand and flipped to the second page. “But all this does. Look: it’s a list of the evidence. They had him dead to right. Lamar’s personal weapon was used in the shooting. His fingerprints were on it. His blood was on her blouse.”
None of which Lamar had ever mentioned.
“Still, there was that note in the cemetery file. The one about Lamar being framed.” There were only those two pieces of paper in the file, but I turned them both over, just in case I’d missed something. “There must be more information somewhere. What about crime scene photos? And the gun itself? If Lamar says he was framed-” I offered an apologetic smile. “If that note in his file says he was framed, there must be a reason somebody thinks he was framed. How can I find out more?”
“This isn’t enough? If all you’re looking for is information about the crime so you can make your team look good-”
“I am. I will. But wouldn’t it be even more interesting if it turned out that note in the file was right? What if Lamar really was innocent? If we could prove that, we’d really look good in the competition.”
“If you could prove that…” Quinn snatched the file folder back from me. “That would mean you’d have to prove that someone else killed Vera Blaine. And that would mean-”
“That I might piss someone off. Big time.” I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth that came with the realization. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t at least look into it.”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
“But, Quinn…” He was about to walk away, which is why I pulled out all the stops and added a playful little purr to my voice. “You know what you got for getting me the basic file. Imagine if you got the real file for me, the whole thing, you know, with the photos and the interviews and-”
“All of that is in some storage room somewhere.”
“Which means I’ll be even more impressed if you can get your hands on it.”
He didn’t have a chance to tell me he would-or wouldn’t-try. Greer’s not-so-soothing voice rang through the section, calling Team Number Two over for the big meet-the-other-team scene. Before I could tell Quinn we’d talk about Lamar’s file again, he was gone, and my teammates and I were being ordered around by Greer.
Walk, talk, smile, stop. Approach Team One. Introduce yourselves. No, that’s not good enough. Start all over again.
Reality TV it was not.
According to Greer, this scene would eat up approximately two minutes of air time. It took two hours to shoot, and by the time it was done, even Team One, in their straw hats and flowing garden dresses, looked a little wilted.
“We’re going to break for lunch.” I took the bull by the horns and made the announcement, and though Greer opened her mouth to object, Team One didn’t give her a chance. Lucinda Wright went over and picked up her picnic basket, and arm in arm with Mae, she led the team out of our section. Greer and the cameraman followed, and my own team shuffled around until I told them to get moving, and I’d meet them in a couple minutes at the closest bar.
I wanted to be alone, see, because I was hoping if I was, Jefferson Lamar would make an appearance.
As soon as everyone was gone, he did. He popped up out of nowhere right next to Absalom’s voodoo altar. “Do you have anything new on the case?”
“I sure do. I saw the file. Looks like you’re as guilty as hell.”
His jaw went rigid.
“Facts are facts,” I told him. “And speaking of facts…” Being careful not to reach into the weeds before I looked to make sure there was nothing in there that was going to surprise me or gross me out, I went for the box.
Only it wasn’t there.
