Galimore’s eyes swept the room, came back to me.
“Jail’s not like prison. It’s a holding tank. Since there’s nothing to do, you spend a lot of time thinking. The more I thought, the more things started to bug me.”
“Things?”
“Loose ends that didn’t tie up.”
A couple of teens moved toward the booth beside ours. He wore a tank and basketball shorts that hung to his knees. She featured a floopy little skirt that struggled to cover her bum.
“The Gambles refused to accept that their daughter left on her own,” I said. “Are you saying they were right?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you share your doubts with them?”
“Wasn’t my place.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“In retrospect, I realize that the investigation left holes big enough for a Humvee.”
“Loose ends.”
Galimore nodded. “That summer, Cindi asked to have the locks changed at home. Her kid brother thought it was because she was afraid of Lovette.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought it was because she was afraid of
Ellen arrived with our food. For a moment we focused on dressing and condiments.
“Something else bugged me. In my initial canvas, I turned up a guy who claimed he saw Gamble and Lovette at the Speedway the night they disappeared.”
“Grady Winge.”
Galimore shook his head. “Eugene Fries. Fries swore he sold Gamble and Lovette corn dogs at a concession stand around eight p.m.”
“Winge said they left the Speedway at six.”
“Yeah.”
“Did anyone interview Fries?”
“Our FBI brethren said the guy was a crackhead and unreliable.”
“Did you share this with Rinaldi?”
Galimore nodded. “He agreed the contradiction was troublesome.”
“Did either of you follow up?”
“We tried, but by then Fries was in the wind. Then my life started falling apart. I got busted, went to jail, lost my job, my marriage imploded.”
Galimore took a forkful of lettuce, chewed.
“For a long time I was a very bitter man. Hated the cops, the FBI, my slut wife, life in general. The Gamble- Lovette file was like a festering wound. The only way I could move on was to put it behind me.”
“I’m confused. You’re revisiting the case now because your employer wants to know about the landfill John Doe? Or because you think the victim could be Cale Lovette?”
Galimore leaned forward, eyes intense. “Fuck my employer. Those dickwads locked me up so I couldn’t follow through on a case that mattered to me. I want to know why.”
“Did Rinaldi pursue the leads after you left the task force?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it possible you’re being paranoid?”
“We’re talking the friggin’ FBI. You don’t think, with all their resources, they couldn’t have cracked this case if they wanted to?”
That same thought had occurred to me.
“But it wasn’t just the FBI and the cops.” Galimore pointed his fork at his chest. “I was also part of the problem.”
I let him continue.
“The Gambles were good people caught between bad alternatives. Either their daughter had turned her back on them, or she’d come to harm. Early in the investigation, they phoned me every day. Eventually I stopped picking up. I’m not proud of that.”
“So your interest is twofold and self-serving. You want to clear your conscience and at the same time stick it to the cops.”
“There’s something else. I got a call at my office earlier this week. The voice sounded male, but I can’t be sure. It was muffled by some sort of filter.”
