Smoke

something we missed the first time around,” said Matt.

The kid sighed heavily, frustration and anger coming off of him in waves. He leaned back on the couch.

“No, it was neat and clean the way she liked it. All the lights were out. The clothes she was wearing when I left were folded on her bed. I figured she just changed and went out to avoid a fight.”

“What was she wearing when you left?” asked Jesamyn.

“Some, like, gray baggy nightgown thing. Ugly as shit but she said it was comfortable.”

“Okay,” said Jesamyn, jotting it down. “Is there anything else about that night that you remember?”

“I remember thinking I should stay home with her. That’s what I remember,” he said, the tears rolling now. “I should have stayed home with her.”

He started to sob and Matt moved over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder. It was kind of a risky thing to do but the kid had no visible reaction. After a minute, he looked up at Matt.

“I haven’t seen anything on television about her, you know that? That pregnant white girl in California? You couldn’t turn on the television without seeing her face. I haven’t seen one picture of my sister anywhere. A Latina girl from the projects goes missing, no one cares.”

Matt and Jesamyn stood silent for a second. There was no use arguing about it; they all knew the truth.

“We care,” said Matt finally. And Jesamyn knew how deeply he meant it. She loved him a little bit for that.

You were good with him,” she said in the car, as they pulled out of their space. They’d come back to the Caprice, surprised to see that it hadn’t been vandalized in any way. Often when you parked a patrol car, marked or unmarked, in the projects you came back to find it covered with eggs or spray paint, maybe vegetables, whatever was handy.

“He’s a kid. She was basically his mother,” he said. “I feel for him.”

Baby Boy was the last of three reinterviews they’d done that afternoon and Mount was consistently kind and respectful, in spite of the abuse that was hurled at them. The next-door neighbor called them “pigs” under his stinking breath when they’d come to the door. A lot of cops would have reacted, but Mount kept calling him sir, speaking in that mellow way he had. Rosario’s best friend Angelica had taunted Mount about his height, wondering out loud if everything about him was so big. Mount had turned bright red but kept his respectful, easy manner. Jesamyn wondered, did it roll off of him or did he hold it inside?

“You’re a big softie,” she said, patting him on the knee.

The sun was hanging low in the sky, painting it a light pink and orange visible above the building tops.

“I gotta get moving,” she said, looking at her watch. “I told Ben we’d have dinner together tonight. Want to join us?”

“I’d love to, but I think I’m going to see what came back on that partial plate.”

She nodded. She knew Lily Samuels had never left his mind the whole afternoon. The case was with her, too, but not in the same way. It was weighing on Mount’s heart.

“Don’t sleep here again tonight, okay?”

He nodded. “I won’t.”

She didn’t believe him.

The search Matt ran on the partial plate and description came back with twenty-eight hits. Twenty-eight black SUVs with license plates beginning with H57 in the New York area. He made a quick scan of the list, plugged a couple of the names into VICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database administered by the FBI, and through the New York system. None of the owners came back with any warrants or criminal records. Nothing else obvious popped. The only thing that caught his attention was a black Navigator belonging to a Michele LaForge that had a couple of outstanding parking tickets. He pulled up her license photo, didn’t recognize her, but printed it anyway for the file. It was nothing; he knew that. He had nothing. Two weeks ago he could have followed up with every one of these people. Just poked around, saw what shook loose. Now, he’d be lucky if he could get to one or two a day over the next few weeks.

He rubbed his eyes when the computer screen started to swim. His frustration, the lack of sleep from the night before, and a totally shit day were taking their toll. It was time to go home.

“Sorry, Lily,” he said to her picture. He was wiped, no good to her or anyone. That was the thing about this job; you could just go and go until you dropped. You never felt right about going home to bed when someone was missing. You could never feel okay about just relaxing, chilling in front of the television, letting your mom cook you some dinner. You did it, you just never felt good about it. At least that’s how he felt. Jesamyn had something important in her life, Benjamin. Something that was equally important, more important than the job. She went home at the end of the day without guilt. He envied her that.

Last year he’d been diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. His doctor, who’d been treating him since he was fourteen years old, had issued a stern warning about stress and its effects on the body, short and long term. So he’d quit smoking, stopped eating fast food, and took the medication his doctor prescribed. For a while, he’d even worked out, but that hadn’t lasted. He had started to feel that burn in his stomach again two nights ago. It was like an existential alarm. When he was pushing himself too hard, he got a painful warning.

He slid the file under his arm and lumbered down the stairs.

“Go home will ya’, Mount,” said Ray Labriola, a narcotics guy who passed him on the stairs. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.”

“I’m taking off,” said Mount, looking at his watch. Nearly nine. “Have a good one.”

“You too, brother,” said Ray.

The night was cold as he stepped outside, the street strangely quiet. A wind blew the fallen leaves around him as he walked to his brand-new Dodge Ram pickup. He slid into the comfortable leather interior with ease. It was the first vehicle he’d ever owned that didn’t feel like a ridiculously small clown car to him. He felt almost normal in it. He turned the car on and all the dials and digital readouts glowed a nifty red and blue. Tiny ram heads lit up in various places. He loved his new car. He let the engine warm up as he took the cellular phone from his pocket.

“Mom?”

“Mateo! So late,” said his mother, her Greek accent still thick even after thirty-five years in New York. “Where are you?”

“Working, Ma. Whaddaya think?”

“I worry,” she said with a dramatic sigh. He knew she watched New York One News all night until she knew he was off duty. She waited to hear if any police officers had been hurt or killed. It had been worse for her when he was on patrol. She thought of detective work as “white shirt” police work, safe and intellectual. She meant “white collar.”

“I keep a plate for you.”

“Thanks, Ma. I’ll be a while still. Don’t wait.”

“We haven’t seen you in two days,” she said. “Remember your ulcer.”

“I know,” he said gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He heard his father’s voice and could picture him lying beside her in bed, the television on. “Tell him not to forget alternate side of the street parking tomorrow.”

“You hear, Mateo?”

“Yeah, Ma. I heard. Good night.”

Every night, his father felt compelled to remind him to move the car from one side of the street to the other lest he should get a parking ticket. Every night since he got his first car.

He lived beside his parents in a two-family house in Brooklyn. So while he wasn’t exactly a thirty-six-year-old man who lived with his parents, he kind of was. They had separate living spaces but his mother still did his laundry, cleaned his place, and cooked most of his meals. This, he perceived, was yet another mark against him in the dating arena. His younger brother, Theo, lived two row houses down on the same block with his pretty wife, Anne, and his two fantastic kids Maura and little Mateo, named after his uncle.

He dialed another number and then rolled out of the lot.

“Ms. Strong,” he said when she answered.

“Detective, good to hear from you,” she said amiably. He heard victory in her voice. He liked her in spite of her smug attitude. He liked her confidence and determination, qualities he knew most men found unattractive.