'Not this afternoon, I don't think. This is business. But I'll tell him you'd like it if he came over.'
'Okay. Do you think he'll come…'
And the talk went that way. All the way to school, Davis looked for trailing cars, looked for short women with red hair, looked for those small competent hands, but she didn't see anybody exactly like that. And Heather never mentioned the bad lady, not once, all the way to school.
Mrs. Gartin's School took children from three to six, and taught them letters and numbers and shapes and colors, music, and phonics for the older children.
Mrs. Gartin and her two associates tried to keep the little boys from beating each other and victimizing the little girls, and encourage the little girls to socialize.
At the back of the big kids' room – Mrs. Gartin never even saw it any more, just another blob in the background – was Officer Friendly's full-size, standup cut out, sponsored by Logan's Rendering Co. Officer Friendly's telephone number was on the front of the poster. Officer Friendly had visited the school, and talked to them about being careful, about bad men and women, and how the police were there to help children. He left behind the cutout.
Heather saw his picture every day, and this day, summoning all her intentness of purpose, she went into Mrs. Roman's cubbyhole when the rest of the class followed Mrs. Roman out to recess, and called the number. She'd called her Mom several times, and knew about dialing nine.
Officer Friendly, whose real name was Dick Ennis, was something of a drunk ('Not an alcoholic,' he said. 'Alcoholics go to meetings.'), and was late to work more than half the time; not that anybody cared. And mostly, when he was sober, he was a pretty good Officer Friendly. For one thing, he liked kids, and had several of his own by two ex-wives. For another, he'd been a decent street cop.
In any case, he'd just arrived at his office, put his sack lunch in his desk drawer, and had turned to go for coffee when the phone rang. He dropped into his chair and picked it up.
Heather said, 'Is this Officer Friendly?'
And Ennis said, 'Yes, it is. Can I help you?' He thought the little girl on the other end of the line might be five years old.
'Yes. A bad lady came to my house and scared my Mom and me.'
'Uh-huh. Who is this? What is your name?'
'This is Heather Davis. My phone number is…'
Smart kid, Ennis thought, as he scribbled down the number. 'Okay, Heather, how did the bad lady scare your Mom and you?'
'She had a gun and she had a mask that she pulled down over her face, and she said if we told anybody, she would come and kill us. And she shooted a picture of my mom. And now my Mom is scared to tell anybody.'
Ennis sat up, his forehead wrinkled. 'When did this happen?'
'Last night when it was dark.'
'Nobody called a policeman?'
'No. Some policeman came to see us, but they went away. Then this lady came and told us not to talk to any more policeman. Ever.'
'Some policemen came to see you? Do you remember who they were?'
'One was a man and one was a woman,' the girl said.
'Do you remember their names? Either one?'
'Yes.'
'Could you tell me what they were?' His own small children had taught him patience.
'One was named Mr. Davenport, and one was named Miss Sherrill.'
'Jesus Christ,' Officer Friendly said.
Chapter Nineteen
Sherrill was still asleep when Lucas called. 'We maybe got a break,' he said.
She picked up the intensity in his voice, heard the traffic in the background.
He was on a cell phone. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes with the heel of her hand. 'What happened?'
'That little kid called in, Heather Davis – she called Officer Friendly, you know the guy, what's-his-name…'
'Ennis.'
'Yeah. She says the shooter was at their apartment last night, and warned her mother not to talk to us. She told them if they did talk to us, she'd come back and kill them both.'
Sherrill hopped out of bed and started for the bathroom, trailed by a twenty foot coil of white phone wire. 'What time was that?'
'Nine, or a little after. Just dark.'
'Then it wasn't Carmel,' Sherrill said. 'We got her coming out of her building around eight-thirty, followed her to the Swan, and watched her dance the night away.'
'You did that? Tracked her?'
'Yeah, me and Tom. You sound surprised…' She lifted the toilet seat and sat down.
'I wasn't sure you were going to, the way we left it yesterday,' Lucas said.
'Seemed like a long shot…'
Sherrill lost the rest of what Lucas was saying, suddenly falling off into a mental movie of the previous night. She came back when Lucas asked, 'Marcy? Are you still there?'
'Lucas… Goddamnit, I think we might have seen the shooter. Last night.
Coming out of Carmel's building.'
'What?' He didn't believe it. 'Honest to God.' She told him about the redhead who'd left as Hale Allen was going in. In her mind's eye, she could see the woman brushing past Hale, giving him the once-over, then stepping outside on the walk and looking up and down the street. 'Could you identify her?'
She thought about it for less than a second: 'I don't think so. I wasn't paying attention to her. I mean, there's a good chance it's not even her. .. but still, she was a shorter woman, a small woman, but in pretty good shape, like a gymnast; like Baily said. And she had big red hair.'
'That was her – I'd bet you a hundred bucks it was her,' Lucas said. 'We've gotta throw a net around the building. And we've got to get something on
Carmel's phones. Find somebody who'll sign a warrant to tap them.'
'Where are you? Are you at Davis's house?'
'No, I'm in my car, heading for the kid's school. She's still there – I'll be there in five.' 'I'll get dressed and head out…'
The inside cop, the tipster, called Carmel just as Lucas and Sherrill were breaking off their conversation:
'You're in the clear,' he said. He didn't bother to identify himself.
'What happened?'
'I'm not sure exactly, but the rumor is, this little kid called in, and said that the shooter was back at her house last night and her mother was afraid to talk about it. And the rumor is, you were being tracked, and they know it can't be you because you were out dancing at some fancy place. I'll tell you what,
Davenport went running out of here like a fullback. I mean, he was runnin'.'
'Jesus, they were following me?' She was shocked. She hadn't felt it. She'd always thought she'd be able to feel it. Maybe because of Hale, his closeness.. .
'All over you, I guess,' the cop said. 'A good thing, because you're in the clear.'
'Why didn't you call me before? When you heard they were putting the tail on me?'
After a pause, the cop said, 'You know I can't do that.'
Carmel promised another payment, rang off and dialed Rinker.
'And it was the kid who called the cops,' Carmel said, as she finished relating the cop's tip.
'Jesus, I never thought about that,' Rinker said. 'She's so small.'
'But it works out,' Carmel said, excitedly. 'You found out that there really was nothing coming out of them, and
