Criminal

fourteen

July 14, 1975

MONDAY

Amanda leaned against her Plymouth as she waited for Evelyn in the parking garage of the Sears building. The air did not move in the underground facility. The coolness afforded from the poured concrete walls was no match for the scorching heat. Even at seven in the morning, Amanda could feel sweat dripping down her neck and into her collar.

Neither she nor Evelyn had been up for the barbecue after leaving the morgue on Saturday evening. Hank Bennett. The misidentified girl. The red fingernails. The broken hyoid bone. It was a lot to process, and neither of them seemed up to having a coherent conversation. They’d both talked in monosyllables, Amanda because of the things she’d seen with Pete Hanson, and Evelyn—most probably—because she’d been unsettled about seeing Rick Landry again. No matter their reasons, Evelyn had gone home to her husband and Amanda had gone home to her empty apartment.

If Sunday brought anything, it was a welcome sense of normalcy. Amanda had cooked breakfast for her father. They’d gone to church. She’d cooked Sunday dinner. All the while, Duke had been notably more cheerful. He’d made a few jokes about the preacher. He was feeling bullish on his case. He’d spoken with his lawyer again. Lars Oglethorpe’s reinstatement was definitely good news for the men Reginald Eaves had fired.

Amanda doubted it was good news for her.

Evelyn’s station wagon made a tight turn, the tires squealing against the concrete. She backed into the space beside the Plymouth, calling through the open window, “Did Kenny call you yesterday?”

Amanda felt a shock of panic. “Why would Kenny call me?”

“I gave him your number.”

For a few seconds, Amanda was too flustered to do anything but stare. “Why would you give him my phone number?”

“Because he asked for it, silly. Why do you sound so surprised? And why are you just standing there?”

Amanda shook her head as she got into the car. Men like Kenny Mitchell didn’t ask for her phone number. “That’s very nice of you to put him up to this, but let’s not waste time on something that’s not going to happen.”

“You can—” Evelyn stopped, but only for a moment before she blurted out, “You can wear Tampax, right?”

Amanda pressed her fingers into her eyelids, not caring whether or not she smudged her makeup. “If I say yes, can we please change the subject?”

Evelyn wouldn’t be daunted. “You know, Pete’s a real doctor. He can write you a prescription, no questions asked, and if you slip the guy at the Plaza Pharmacy a few extra bucks, he won’t be a jerk about it.”

Amanda fanned her face. The heat was even more stifling inside the car. She tried not to think about her telephone ringing in her empty apartment yesterday.

“It’s legal now, sweetheart. You don’t have to be married to get birth control anymore.”

Amanda’s laugh was genuine this time. “I think you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions.”

“Maybe, but it’s fun, isn’t it?”

It was humiliating, actually, but Amanda tried to hide that fact by looking at her watch again. “Did this consume your entire Sunday, or did you manage to think at all about what we’ve been doing?”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? It’s all that’s been on my mind for the last week. I was so distracted this morning I put salt instead of sugar in Bill’s coffee. Poor man drank half the cup before he realized what I’d done.” She paused for a breath. “What about you?”

“I’ve been going over Butch’s notes.” Amanda pulled the homicide detective’s notebook out of her purse. “See this here?” She pointed to the page for Evelyn’s benefit. The letters CI were circled twice.

“Confidential informant,” Evelyn said. She flipped back through the notebook. “Does he say anything else about it? A name, maybe?”

“Nothing, but a lot of Butch’s cases rely on CIs.” Most of them did, actually. The man was very good at finding criminals and lowlifes who were willing to parlay information into a get-out-of-jail-free card. “He never names his sources.”

“Oh, that’s sneaky.” She scanned the pages, stopping on a crude drawing of the apartment where Jane Delray had lived. “He left out the bathroom. Did he even search the place?” She answered her own question. “Of course he didn’t. Why would he?”

Amanda checked the time again. She didn’t want to be late for roll call. “We should go over what we’re doing today. I can call my friend at the Housing Authority when I get to work. Maybe we can find out who rented that apartment.”

Evelyn paused for a moment as she switched gears. “I’ll call Cindy Murray at the Five and see if she has time to check the confiscated-license box for a Lucy Bennett. At least we’ll have a photograph of her.”

“I don’t know what good it’ll do. Pete will have to sign off on the ID. It came from her own brother.” Neither she nor Evelyn had the nerve to contradict Hank Bennett’s identification of his sister. “Bennett hasn’t laid eyes on her in five or six years. Do you think he knew it wasn’t Lucy?”

“I think all he cared about was not being late for his dinner date.”

They were both silent. Amanda felt a ping-pong sensation inside her head. Thoughts kept bouncing around, getting lost. It was just too much to keep up with.

Evelyn was obviously feeling the same. She said, “Bill and I started a puzzle last night—bridges of the Pacific Northwest. Zeke picked it out for Father’s Day last month—and I thought, ‘This is exactly how I’ve felt all week. Like there are all of these different little pieces to a puzzle floating around out there, and if I could only put them together, maybe I’d be able to see the full picture.’ ”

“I know what you mean. All I do is ask myself questions, and I can’t seem to get a satisfactory answer to any of them.”

“Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea.”

“You cannot imagine my surprise.”

Evelyn gave her a sarcastic grimace, then leaned into the back seat of the station wagon.

“What are you doing?”

She snaked her body around into the back seat. Her legs went up. Amanda swatted the woman’s feet out of her face. She scanned the parking lot, praying they were not being watched.

“Evelyn,” she said. “What on earth?”

“Got it.” Finally, she shimmied back into her seat. She had a pack of construction paper in her hands. “Zeke’s crayons melted into the carpet. Bring your pen.” She pushed open the door.

Amanda got out of the car and followed her around to the front of the wagon. Evelyn took a piece of paper off the top of the pack and, using Amanda’s pen, wrote, “HANK BENNETT” on the page. Next, she took another page and wrote, “LUCY BENNETT,” then on another put, “JANE DELRAY.” She added “MARY” and “KITTY TREADWELL” into the mix, then “HODGE,” “JUICE/DWAYNE MATHISON,” and finally, “ANDREW TREADWELL.”

“What are you doing?” Amanda asked.

“Puzzle pieces.” She spread the multicolored pages out on the Falcon’s hood. “Let’s put it together.”

Amanda took in the disparate words. The idea wasn’t so crazy after all. “We should do it chronologically.” She moved the names around as she spoke. “Hank Bennett came into the station, and then Sergeant Hodge sent us to Techwood. Make a new one for Tech.” Evelyn scribbled the word onto a new sheet. “We need to subcategorize these.” Amanda took the pen and started filling in details: dates, times, what they’d been told. The Fury’s engine clicked in the heat. The metal hood singed her skin.

Evelyn suggested, “I’ll make a timeline.”

Amanda handed her the pen. She pointed to the different pages as she called out the sequence. “Hank Bennett goes to Sergeant Hodge last Monday. Hodge immediately sends us out to Techwood to take a rape report.” She looked at Evelyn. “Hodge won’t tell us why he sent us in the first place. Obviously, there wasn’t a rape. Why did he send us there?”

“I’ll ask him again this morning, but he wouldn’t tell me the last four times.”

Amanda felt the need to tell her, “You were very brave to do that.”

“Fat lot of good it did.” Evelyn waved away the compliment. “Juice, the pimp, doesn’t belong in here.”

“Unless he’s the one who killed Jane.”

“That doesn’t seem likely. Juice was probably in jail when it happened. Or having the crap beaten out of him for resisting arrest.”

“Okay, let’s push him up here as a remote possibility.” Amanda moved Juice to the periphery. “Next: We’re at the apartment in Techwood. Jane tells us that there are three girls missing: Lucy Bennett, Kitty—who we later find out is Treadwell—and a girl named Mary, last name unknown.”

“Right.” Evelyn wrote down the information, shooting their names off Jane Delray’s.

“Then, a few days later, Jane is murdered.”

“But she was misidentified as Lucy,” Evelyn corrected. “I’ll put an asterisk beside her name, but we should keep it this way just for clarity’s sake.”

“Right. A person who is thought to be Lucy Bennett is murdered.”

“I wonder if the brother had a big life insurance policy on her?”

Amanda supposed being married to an insurance man put these ideas into Evelyn’s head. “Is there a way to check? A registry?”

“I’ll ask Bill, but just talking it out, I think given Lucy’s life, why murder her when she would eventually kill herself with drugs?” Evelyn looked down at the timeline. “It’s not much of a motive.”

“Motive.” There was something they hadn’t considered. “Why would someone want to murder Jane?”

“Are we assuming the killer knew it was Jane whom he was murdering?”

Amanda’s head was starting to hurt. “I think we have to assume that until we find out otherwise.”

“Okay. Motive. Jane was very annoying.”

“True,” Amanda agreed. “But the last person she annoyed other than us was Juice, and if there’s one thing I know about pimps, it’s that they don’t kill their girls. They want them working. They’re product.”

“I’ll call the jail and see when Juice got out, just to make triple sure.” Evelyn tapped the pen against her chin. “Maybe the murderer was someone who saw Jane talking to us at Techwood? The whole compound lit up when we arrived. There’s no way it wasn’t broadcast to the rooftops that Jane was talking to two police officers.”

Amanda felt unsettled by the thought that she might’ve been partly responsible for the girl’s death. “Write that down as a possibility.”

“I hate to think we had anything to do with it. Then again, she wasn’t exactly baking cookies for the PTA.”

“No,” Amanda agreed, but Evelyn had only seen the pictures. “Have you ever had a manicure?”

Evelyn looked at her fingernails, which were clear-coated, just like Amanda’s. “Bill treated me to one last Christmas. I can’t say that I enjoyed having a stranger touch my hands.”

“Jane’s fingernails were perfect. They were filed and polished. I couldn’t’ve done a better job myself.”

“That manicure was ridiculously expensive. I can’t imagine Jane having the money.”

“No, and if she did, she’d spend it on drugs, not getting her fingernails polished.” Amanda remembered, “Pete said something interesting about the attacker. He said the man was angry, uncontrolled.”

“How in the world can he tell that?”

“From the way Jane looked. She was beaten all over.” Amanda tried to think it through, but she found it was easier to talk it out to Evelyn. “I guess we should be asking ourselves what kind of person is capable of this. And then, ask how he would do it. He obviously used his fists, but he had the hammer, too. He busted open the lock on the access door to the roof. But then, we need to consider how he was able to get the better of someone like Jane. She wasn’t bright, but she was street-smart.”

“Who, how, and why,” Evelyn summarized. “Those are very good questions. If Juice isn’t the answer to them, then who is? Someone Jane has seen before. A regular customer who knows where she lives.” Evelyn tapped the pen again. “But, then, this is what we’re saying: He knocked on the door. He gave her a manicure. Then he threw her off the roof.”

“He strangled her before he threw her off the roof.”

Evelyn asked, “Pete told you that?” Amanda nodded. “That seems like a more plausible scenario. Jane screamed like a stuck pig when you kicked her, and that was barely a tap.”

“You didn’t say that at the time.”

“I was scared,” Evelyn admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Amanda told her. “Maybe we could ask around and see if any johns are into choking.”

“I know a gal who works undercover downtown. I’ll see what she knows. But even if there is a guy out there who likes choking women—and something tells me there’s more than one—how are we going to find his real name? And if by some miracle we do find his name, how on earth would we link him to Jane?”

Amanda offered, “Pete scraped some skin out from under Jane’s fingernails. He said he could match the blood type against a suspect. See if he’s a secretor or a nonsecretor.”

“Eighty percent of the population has secretor status. Nearly forty percent is type O-positive. That’s hardly narrowing it down.”

“I didn’t know that,” Amanda admitted. Evelyn was much better at statistics than she was. “Let’s go back to the puzzle before we’re both late for work.” Amanda picked up where they’d left off in the timeline. “Next, we met Mr. Blue Suit, aka Hank Bennett, at the morgue. He admits he hasn’t seen his sister in years, which might explain why he couldn’t identify her.”

“Or, he’s just too arrogant to admit that he can’t.”

That seemed far more likely. “I still find it odd that Lucy Bennett didn’t have a record. She’s been on the game at least a year, probably more.”

“Neither does Kitty Treadwell.” Evelyn looked sheepish. “I radioed dispatch on my way here. They ran through all the variations for me. There was no record for a Kitty Treadwell.”

“How about Jane Delray?”

“She had two pick-ups several years ago, but nothing recently.”

“Then her fingerprints are on file.”

Evelyn frowned. “No, they’re not. I asked. A lot of the older records have been purged.”

“That’s convenient.” Amanda updated the information under each girl’s name. “We need to work on Andrew Treadwell. He’s a lawyer. He’s a friend of the mayor’s. What else do we know about him?”

“Jane intimated that he was Kitty’s uncle. She point-blank said that Kitty was rich, that her family was connected.”

Amanda said, “That article in the newspaper listed Andrew Treadwell as having only one daughter.”

“He’s one of the top lawyers in the city. He’s politically powerful. If he has a daughter who’s been pimped out on the streets by a black man, do you really think that’s something he’d advertise? He’d more likely use his money and influence to keep her hidden away.”

“You’re right,” Amanda allowed. She stared down at the diagram. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Lucy and Kitty are both out on the street and one of them has a brother working for the other’s uncle?”

“Maybe they met at a self-help group.” Evelyn smiled. “Whores Anonymous.”

Amanda rolled her eyes at the joke. “Are we still assuming that Andrew Treadwell is the one who sent Hank Bennett to talk to Hodge last Monday?”

“I am. Are you?”

Amanda nodded again. “Which may support your theory that Andrew Treadwell doesn’t want it to get out that he’s related to Kitty. We could be looking at it wrong. Who does Treadwell want to hide the relationship from if not his buddies at City Hall?”

“Bennett is quite a piece of work,” Evelyn mumbled. “He’s one of the most arrogant asses I’ve met. And that’s saying a lot considering the guys we work with.”

Amanda tried to recall Hank Bennett’s terse answers to their questions outside the morgue. She should’ve written them down. “Bennett said he sent his sister a letter at the Union Mission. Do you remember him saying when?”

“Yes. He mailed the letter to the Mission when his father passed away last year—this time last year. Which reminds me: Jane said Lucy has been missing for about a year.”

Amanda wrote down this information under Lucy’s name. “When you asked Bennett if he knew the name Kitty Treadwell, he told us to watch where we put our noses.”

“Trask,” Evelyn remembered. “That was the man he talked with at the Union Mission.”

“He said Trask or Trent,” Amanda corrected. The exchange stuck in her head because her mother’s maiden name was Trent.

“We have to call him something for now,” Evelyn pointed out.

“Trask,” Amanda suggested.

“Okay, Trask told Bennett that he gave the letter to Lucy, which means he must know Lucy. If he works at the Union Mission, he might know all of our girls. Oh, Amanda—” She sounded devastated. “Why didn’t we think to go to the Union Mission in the first place? All the hookers go there when they need a break. It’s their Acapulco.”

“The mission is just up the street,” Amanda reminded her. “We can still talk to Trask, see if he remembers anything about Lucy—or Jane.”

“If we’re lucky, they’ll tell us Lucy’s alive and well and on such-and-such corner, and why are people saying she’s been murdered.” Evelyn looked at her watch. “I have to check in at Model City, but I could meet you there in half an hour.”

“That should give me enough time to call the Housing Authority and figure out what I’m going to do with Peterson.”

“I’m sure Vanessa won’t mind taking him.”

Amanda tucked her pen back in her purse. “I feel that’s a bad situation brewing.”

“Maybe. Listen, I’ll try to question Hodge again, but I doubt that’ll get me anywhere.” She scooped up the pieces of construction paper and stacked them together. “I just have such a bad feeling about all of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think Lucy Bennett’s dead either way.”

“Possibly, but it could be drugs, not malfeasance.”

“Have you read about all those girls in Texas who disappeared around the I-45 corridor?”

“What?”

“A dozen or more,” Evelyn told her. “They’re not even sure where the bodies are.”

“Where do you hear these things?”

There was no shame in her smile. “True Crime magazine.”

Amanda sighed as she watched Evelyn climb into her station wagon. “I’ll see you at the mission.”

“Deal.” Evelyn slowly pulled out of the parking space. “And I wouldn’t worry too much about Vanessa,” she called through the open window. “Who do you think told me about the guy behind the counter at the Plaza Pharmacy?”

“Mandy!” Vanessa called as soon as she walked into the station.

Amanda pushed her way through the crowd. The station was full. Roll call was a few minutes off. Amanda glanced into the sergeant’s office, but it was empty.

“Hurry!” Vanessa was sitting in back again, practically bouncing in her chair. She was wearing slacks and a flowery blouse. Her gun was holstered on her hip. She was dressed in men’s shoes. Amanda was beginning to wonder if she was worried about the wrong sex where Vanessa was concerned. At least she was still wearing a bra.

“Lookit what I got.” Vanessa held up a credit card as if it was a bar of gold. Amanda recognized the logo of the Franklin Simon department store. And then her jaw dropped at the punch-typed gold letters spelling out VANESSA LIVINGSTON underneath.

“How did you …” Amanda sank down in her chair. She was almost afraid to touch the card. Then she did. “Is it real?”

“Yep.” Vanessa beamed.

Amanda could not stop staring at the card. “Is this a joke?” She glanced around to see if anyone was watching. No one seemed to care. “How did you get this?”

“Rachel Foster over in dispatch told me about it. All you have to do is show them six months’ worth of pay stubs.”

“Are you kidding me?” Amanda hadn’t been able to get her apartment without Duke guaranteeing the rent. If not for the city providing her a car, she’d be on foot. “They just gave it to you? Just like that?”

“That’s right.”

“They didn’t ask to speak to your husband or your father or—”

“Nope.”

Amanda was still dubious. She handed back the card. Franklin Simon was all right, but they were doomed to bankruptcy if they were handing out credit so freely. “Listen, can you do me a favor today and ride with Peterson?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

The guttural sound of someone vomiting filled the room. It was joined by other men making similar disgusting noises. Butch Bonnie walked into the station, his fists held up as if he was Muhammad Ali. Amanda had forgotten how ill he’d been at the crime scene last Friday. Obviously, the rest of the squad had not. People clapped and laughed. There were even cheers from the black side of the room. Butch did a sort of victory spin as he made his way toward Amanda.

He leaned on the table. “Hey, gal, you got my stuff for me?”

Amanda reached into her bag for the typed report. She dropped the pages on the table beside him.

“Why you bein’ so cold?” he asked. “You on the rag?”

“It’s what your partner did to Evelyn Mitchell,” Amanda shot back. “He’s an animal.”

Butch scratched the side of his cheek. He looked rough. His clothes were wrinkled. His face was unshaven. There was a distinct odor of alcohol and stale cigarettes sweating from his pores.

Amanda stared straight ahead. “Is there anything else?”

“Jesus, Mandy. Cut him some slack. His wife’s been giving him enough crap at home. He don’t need to come to work and catch lip off another skirt.”

She forced herself not to soften. “Your notes had a factual error.”

Butch tossed a cigarette into his mouth. “Whattaya talkin’ about?”

“You said you ID’d Lucy Bennett off a license in her purse. The evidence receipt didn’t list a license of any type.”

“Shit,” he mumbled, then, “S’cuse the language.” He skimmed his notebook, compared it to her typed report. “Yeah, I see it.”

“How did you ID the victim?”

He lowered his voice. “Off a CI.”

“Who?”

“Never you mind who,” he told her. “Just fix the report.”

“You know they can’t change the evidence receipt. The carbons are in triplicate.”

“Then change the report so it says someone recognized her.” He handed back the typed report. “There was a witness on scene. Call him Jigaboo Jones. I don’t care. Just make it work.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You’re the one whose signature goes at the bottom.”

He looked nervous, but said, “Yeah, I’m sure. Just do it.”

“Butch—” She stopped him before he could leave. “How did Hank Bennett find out his sister was dead? You usually specify that in your notes, but this time, there’s nothing.” Amanda pressed a bit harder. “Lucy didn’t have a record, so it seems strange that you and Landry were able to locate next of kin so quickly.”

He stared at her, unblinking. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head. She didn’t know if Butch was just now asking himself the question or wondering why Amanda had posed it. Finally, he told her, “I don’t know.”

She studied him, trying to detect duplicity. “It seems like you’re telling me the truth.”

“Jesus, Mandy, hanging around Evelyn Mitchell’s turning you into the wrong kinda gal.” He pushed himself up from the table. “Get that report back to me first thing tomorrow morning.” He waited for her to nod, then went to the front of the room.

“Wow,” Vanessa said. She’d been strangely quiet. “What’s going on with you and Butch?”

Amanda shook her head. “I need to make a phone call.”

There were two telephones in the front of the room, but Amanda didn’t want to make her way through the crowd. Nor did she want to run into Rick Landry, who’d just walked into the station. The clock on the wall was straight up at eight o’clock. Sergeant Woody was still not here. Amanda wasn’t surprised. Woody had a reputation for hitting the bars before work. She might as well use his office.

Nothing much had changed since Luther Hodge had vacated the space. Paperwork was scattered across the blotter. The ashtray was brimming over. Woody hadn’t even bothered to get a new mug for his coffee.

Amanda sat down behind the desk and dug into her purse for her address book. The black leather was cracked and peeling. She thumbed to the C’s and traced her finger down to Pam Canale’s number at the Housing Authority. They weren’t close friends—the woman was Italian—but Amanda had helped Pam’s niece out of some trouble a few years ago. Amanda was hoping the woman wouldn’t mind returning the favor.

She checked the squad room before dialing Pam’s number, then waited while the call was transferred.

“Canale,” Pam said, but Amanda hung up. Sergeant Luther Hodge was heading back toward the office. His office.

She stood from the desk so fast that the chair hit the wall.

“Miss Wagner,” Hodge said. “Has there been a promotion about which I am uninformed?”

“No,” she said, then, “Sir.” Amanda scuttled around the desk. “I’m sorry, sir. I was making a phone call.” She stopped, trying to appear less flustered. The fact was that she was stunned. “Did you get transferred back here?”

“Yes, I did.” He waited for her to move out of his path so that he could sit down. “I suppose you think I’m holding water for your father.”

Amanda had been about to leave, but she couldn’t now. “No, sir. I was just making a phone call.” She remembered Evelyn, her boldness in confronting Hodge. “Why did you send me to Techwood last week?”

He had been about to sit at his desk. He paused midair, hand holding back his tie.

“You told us to investigate a rape. There was no rape.”

Slowly, he sat down. He indicated the chair. “Have a seat, Miss Wagner.”

Amanda started to close the door.

“Leave that open.”

She did as she was told, sitting opposite him at the desk.

“Are you trying to intimidate me, Miss Wagner?”

“I—”

“I realize your father still has many friends in this department, but I will not be intimidated. Is that clear?”

“Intimidated?”

“Miss Wagner, I may not be from around here, but I can tell you one thing for sure. One thing you can take straight back to your daddy: this nigger ain’t goin’ back into the fields.”

She felt her mouth working, but no words would come out.

“Dismissed.”

Amanda couldn’t move.

“Should I repeat my order?”

Amanda stood. She walked toward the open door. Her competing emotions compelled her to keep moving, to work this out in private, to formulate a more reasoned response than what actually came out of her mouth. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

Hodge had been writing something on a piece of paper. Probably a request to have her transferred to Perry Homes. His pen stopped. He stared at her, waiting.

Words got jumbled in her mouth. “I want to work. To be good at … I need to be good at …” She forced herself to stop speaking long enough to collect her thoughts. “The girl you sent us out to interview. Her name was Jane Delray. She wasn’t raped. She wasn’t injured. There wasn’t a scratch on her. She was fine.”

Hodge studied her a moment. He put down his pen. He sat back in his chair, his hands clasped in front of his stomach.

“Her pimp came in. His street name is Juice. He chased Jane out of the apartment. He made suggestive overtures toward me and Evelyn. We arrested him.”

Hodge continued to stare at her. Finally, he nodded.

“Last Friday, this woman was found dead at Techwood Homes. Jane Delray. It was reported as a suicide, but the coroner told me that she was strangled, then thrown from the building.”

Hodge was still looking at her. “I think you’re mistaken.”

“No, I’m not.” Even as Amanda said the words, she questioned herself. Was she certain that the victim was not Lucy Bennett? How was it possible to tell whether or not the corpse at the morgue was truly Jane Delray? Hank Bennett had been equally as certain that he was identifying his sister. But the face, the track marks, the scars on her wrists.

Amanda said, “The victim was not Lucy Bennett. It was Jane Delray.”

Her words floated up into the stale air. Amanda fought the urge to equivocate. This was the hardest lesson they had learned at the academy. It was a woman’s nature to be diminutive, to make peace. They’d spent hours raising their voices, giving orders rather than making requests.

Hodge steepled his fingers. “What’s your next step?”

She let some of the breath out of her lungs. “I’m meeting Evelyn Mitchell at the Union Mission. All the streetwalkers end up there eventually. It’s like their Mexico.” Hodge’s brow furrowed at the analogy. Amanda kept talking. “There has to be someone at the Union Mission who knew the girls.”

He kept studying her. “Did I mishear a plural?”

Amanda bit her lip. She longed for Evelyn’s presence. She was so much better at this. Still, Amanda couldn’t give up now. “The man you spoke to last Monday. The lawyer in the blue suit. His name is Hank Bennett. You thought he was sent by Andrew Treadwell.” Hodge didn’t disagree, so she continued. “I imagine he was here looking for his sister, Lucy Bennett.”

Hodge supplied, “And then, less than a week later, he found her.”

His statement hung between them. Amanda tried to analyze its meaning, but then a more pressing issue presented itself. Rick Landry barreled into the office. He reeked of whiskey. He threw his cigarette on the floor. “Tell this fucking broad to keep her nose out of my case.”

If Hodge was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he asked in a perfectly reasonable voice, “And you are?”

Landry was visibly taken aback. “Rick Landry. Homicide.” He glared at Hodge. “Where’s Hoyt?”

“I imagine Sergeant Woody is drinking his breakfast downtown.”

Again, Landry was taken off guard. It was commonly held on the force that a man’s drinking problem was his own business. “This is a homicide case. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with her. Or that mouthy bitch she’s been hangin’ around with.”

“Homicide?” Hodge paused just a moment longer than necessary. “I was under the impression that Miss Bennett committed suicide.” He pushed through the paperwork on his desk, taking his time finding what he was looking for. “Yes, here’s your preliminary report. Suicide.” He held out the paper. “Is that your signature, Officer?”

“Detective.” Landry snatched the report out of his hand. “It’s what you said, preliminary.” He wadded the paper into a ball and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll give you the final report later.”

“So, the case is still open? You believe Lucy Bennett was murdered?”

Landry glanced back at Amanda. “I need more time.”

“Take all the time you need, Detective.” Hodge held out his hands as if he was placing the world at Landry’s feet. When the man did not leave, he asked, “Is there anything else?”

Landry glowered at Amanda before making his exit. He slammed the door behind him. Hodge looked at the closed door, then back at Amanda.

She asked, “Why did Hank Bennett come here last Monday?”

“That sounds like a very good question.”

“Why did he want you to send us to Kitty’s apartment?”

“Another good question.”

“You didn’t give us a name, just an address.”

“That’s correct.” He picked up his pen. “You can skip roll call.”

Amanda remained seated. She didn’t understand.

“I said you can skip roll call, Miss Wagner.” He went back to his paperwork. When Amanda didn’t leave, he glanced up at her. “Don’t you have a case to work?”

She stood, using the arm of the chair to leverage herself up. The door was stuck. She had to jerk it open. Amanda kept her gaze ahead as she walked through the squad room and out the door. Her resolve almost broke when she was pulling the Plymouth out of the parking lot. She could see the squad through the broken pane of glass in the storefront. A few of the patrolmen watched her leave.

Amanda pulled out onto Highland. Her breathing didn’t return to normal until she was on Ponce de Leon heading toward the Union Mission. By her watch, she had another ten minutes before Evelyn joined her. Maybe Amanda could use the time to figure out what had just happened. The problem was that she didn’t know where to begin. She needed time to digest it all. She also still needed to make a phone call.

The Trust Company branch on the corner of Ponce and Monroe had a bank of pay phones outside the building. Amanda pulled into the parking lot. She backed her car into a space and sat with her hands still wrapped around the wheel. None of this made sense. Why was Hodge speaking in riddles? He didn’t seem to be afraid of much. Was he trying to help Amanda or trying to discourage her?

She found some coins in her wallet and grabbed her address book. Two of the pay phones were out of order. The last one took her dime. She dialed Pam’s number again and listened to the rings. At twenty, she was about to give up, but Pam finally answered.

“Canale.” She sounded even more harried than before.

“Pam, it’s Amanda Wagner.”

A few seconds passed before Pam seemed to recognize her name. “Mandy. What’s going on? Oh, crap, don’t tell me something’s wrong with Mimi?”

Mimi Mitideri, the niece who’d almost run off with a Navy cadet. “No, nothing like that. I was calling to see if you could do me a favor.”

She seemed relieved, though her day was probably filled with people asking for favors. “What do you need?”

“I was wondering if you could look up a name for me, or an apartment.” Amanda realized she wasn’t being very clear. She hadn’t thought through the conversation. “There’s an apartment at Techwood Homes—apartment C. It’s on the fifth floor in the row of buildings—”

“Whoa, let me stop you there. There’s no C at Techwood Homes. They’re numbered.”

Amanda resisted the temptation to ask her where one might find these numbers. “Could you look up a name, then? A Katherine or Kate or Kitty Treadwell?”

“We don’t go by names. We go by roll numbers.”

Amanda sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” She felt the uselessness of the situation sitting like an elephant on her chest. “I’m not even sure if I’ve got the right name. There are—were—at least three girls living there. Maybe more.”

“Wait a minute,” Pam said. “Are they related?”

“I doubt it. They’re working girls.”

“All in the same unit?” Pam asked. “That’s not allowed unless they’re related. And even if they are, none of those gals ever want to room together. They lie all the time.” There was a noise on Pam’s end of the line. She covered the mouthpiece for a few seconds and had a muffled conversation with another person. When she came back on the line, her voice was clearer. “Tell me about the apartment. You said it was on the top floor?”

“Yes. Fifth floor.”

“Those are one-bedroom units. A single girl wouldn’t get that housing assignment unless she has a child.”

“There was no child. Just three women. I’m guessing it was three. Maybe there were more.”

Pam groaned. When she spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “My supervisor can be persuaded sometimes.”

Amanda was going to ask what she meant, but then it hit her.

Pam sounded bitter. “They should put me in charge. I wouldn’t trade a top-floor apartment for a blow job.”

Amanda gave a shocked laugh—as if such a thing was possible. “Well, thank you, Pam. I know you’ve got work to do.”

“Let me know if you get the unit number. Maybe I can track it back from there. Might take me a week or two, but I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you,” Amanda repeated. She hung up the phone. Her hand stayed on the receiver. Her mind had been working on other things while she was talking to Pam Canale. It was like looking for your keys. The minute you stopped trying to find them, you remembered where you’d left them.

But there was only one way to be certain.

Amanda put another dime in the slot. She dialed a familiar number. Duke Wagner was never one to let a phone ring more than twice. He picked up almost immediately.

“Hey, Daddy,” Amanda managed, but then she didn’t know what else to say.

Duke sounded alarmed. “Are you all right? Did something happen?”

“No, no,” she told him, wondering why she had called her father in the first place. This was sheer lunacy.

“Mandy? What’s going on? Are you at the hospital?”

Amanda rarely heard her father panicked. Nor had she ever considered the fact that he might be worried about the job she was doing, especially since he was no longer there to protect her.

“Mandy?” She heard a chair slide across the kitchen floor. “Talk to me.”

She swallowed back the uneasy realization that for just a moment, she had enjoyed scaring her father. “I’m fine, Daddy. I just had a question about—” She didn’t know what to call it. “About politics.”

He sounded relieved and slightly irritated. “This couldn’t wait until tonight?”

“No.” She looked out at the street. Cars were backing up at the light. Businessmen were going to work. Women were taking their children to school. “We had a new sergeant last week. One of Reggie’s boys.”

Duke made a sharp comment about this, as if his feelings weren’t already known.

“He got transferred after just one day. Hoyt Woody was moved into his position.”

“Hoyt’s a good man.”

“Well.” Amanda didn’t finish her thought. She found the man unctuous and off-putting, but that was not the point of this conversation. “Anyway, after a few days, Hoyt got transferred back out, and now the old sergeant, Reggie’s boy, got moved back in.”

“And?”

“Well,” she repeated. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Not particularly.” She heard him light a cigarette. “It’s how the system works. You get one guy in to do one thing, then move in another to do something else.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You gotta star pitcher, right?” Duke always favored baseball metaphors. “Only he can’t swing a bat. You got it?”

“Yes.”

“So you send in a pinch hitter.”

“Oh.” She nodded, understanding.

Duke still didn’t think she got it. “There’s something going on in your squad. Reggie’s boy wouldn’t follow orders, so they sent in Hoyt to take care of business.” He laughed. “Typical. Send in a white man when you need the job done right.”

Amanda held the phone away from her mouth so he wouldn’t hear her sigh. “Thanks, Daddy. I should get back to work.”

Duke wouldn’t let her off that easy. “You’re not getting mixed up in something you shouldn’t?”

“No, Daddy.” She tried to think of something else to say. “Be sure to put the chicken back in the refrigerator around ten. It’ll spoil if you leave it out all day.”

“I heard you when you told me the first six times,” he snapped. Instead of hanging up, he said, “Be careful, Mandy.”

She rarely heard such compassion in his voice. Unaccountably, tears came into her eyes. Butch Bonnie was right about one thing. It was close to that time of month for Amanda. She was turning into a hormonal mess. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She heard a click as Duke hung up the phone.

Amanda returned the receiver to the cradle. Back in her car, she took a handkerchief out of her purse and wiped her hand. Then she patted dry her face. The sun was unrelenting. She felt as if she was melting.

A honking sound ripped through the quiet of her car. Evelyn Mitchell’s Ford Falcon had stopped for a yellow light. A delivery truck sped around her. The man stuck his hand out in an obscene gesture.

“For goodness sakes,” Amanda mumbled, turning the key in the ignition. She pulled out onto the road and followed Evelyn three blocks down Ponce de Leon to the Union Mission. Evelyn took a slow, wide turn into the parking lot so she could back into an empty space. Amanda swung her Plymouth around and was getting out of the car by the time Evelyn turned off the engine.

Amanda said, “You’re going to get yourself killed driving that slowly.”

“You mean driving the speed limit? That truck driver—”

“Almost killed you,” Amanda quipped. “I’m going to take you out to the stadium this weekend and give you a proper lesson.”

“Oh.” Evelyn seemed pleased. “Let’s make a day of it. We can go to lunch and do some shopping.”

Amanda was startled by her eagerness. She changed the subject. “Hodge is back at my station.”

“I thought it was strange that he wasn’t at Model City this morning.” Evelyn closed her car door. “Why did they send him back?”

Amanda debated whether or not to reveal that she’d called her father. She decided against it. “It’s possible the brass transferred in Hoyt Woody to do their dirty work.”

“Why would they send in a white man? Wouldn’t one of Reggie’s boys be better for this sort of thing? Keep it in the family, as it were?”

She had raised a good point, but then, Evelyn didn’t suffer from Duke’s color blindness. Hoyt Woody would do as he was told in hopes of ingratiating himself with the brass. Luther Hodge might not be as malleable.

Amanda said, “I imagine Woody was sent in for the same reason Hodge sent two women out to talk to Jane. We’re expendable. No one really listens to us.”

“That’s true enough.” Evelyn shrugged because there was nothing they could do about it. “So, Hodge was replaced for a few days by someone who would do their dirty work, then he was slotted back in.”

“Exactly.” Amanda said, “Your friend at the Five said she called security on Jane Delray when she tried to cash Lucy’s vouchers. Security is run out of the Five Points precinct. Whoever hauled Jane out of the building would’ve written her up on an incident card.” The cards were part of a larger system used to track petty criminals who weren’t yet worth arresting. “The cards are fed into a daily report that goes up the chain of command. Someone high up would know that Jane was trying to use Lucy’s name.”

Evelyn came to the same conclusion as Amanda had. “We were sent to Techwood to scare Jane into silence.”

“We did a great job, didn’t we?”

Evelyn put her hand to her temple. “I need a drink. This is giving me a migraine.”

“Well, this should make your head hurt even more.” Amanda told her about the phone call with Pam Canale, the dead end she’d hit. Then she relayed the cryptic conversation she’d had with Sergeant Hodge.

“How strange,” was all Evelyn could manage. “Why won’t Hodge answer our questions?”

“I think he wants us to keep working this case, but he can’t appear to be encouraging us.”

“I think you’re right.” Evelyn said, “Maybe Kitty didn’t get that top-floor apartment with sexual favors. Maybe her uncle or daddy pulled some strings.”

“If Kitty is the black sheep of the Treadwell family, I can certainly see Andrew Treadwell trying to keep her from making trouble. He sets her up in an apartment with her own kind. He gets her on the welfare rolls. He makes sure she’s got just enough money to stay out of his hair.”

“There’s no way we can talk to Andrew Treadwell. We wouldn’t make it as far as the lobby.”

Amanda didn’t bother to agree with the obvious.

Evelyn said, “I talked to my gal in undercover. It’s just what I thought: it’d be easier to find a man who doesn’t like choking whores.”

“That’s depressing.”

“It is if you’re a whore.” Evelyn added, “I told her to ask around if anybody likes painting fingernails.”

“Smart thinking.”

“We’ll see if it pans out. I told her to call me at home. I’d hate for any of this to go out on the radio.”

“Did you find out whether or not Juice was in jail when Jane was murdered?”

“He was at Grady getting fitted with a resisting-arrest turban.”

Amanda had heard the terminology before. There were a lot of prisoners who woke up in the Grady ER with no recollection of how they’d gotten there. “That’s hardly an alibi. He could walk in and out of the hospital without anyone noticing.”

“You’re right,” Evelyn agreed.

Amanda blinked at the sweltering sun. “We could stand out here all day talking ourselves into circles.”

“Right again. Let’s get this part over with.” Evelyn indicated the flat, one-story building in front of them. The Union Mission had been a butcher’s shop at one time.

Amanda said, “Acapulco. Where did you get that?”

“I saw a spread in Life magazine. Johnny Weissmuller has a place there. It was gorgeous.”

“You and your magazines.”

Evelyn grinned, then turned serious as she looked up at the building. “How are we going to handle this? As far as anyone knows, Lucy Bennett committed suicide.”

“I think that’s the story we should stick to, don’t you?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

Amanda was used to not having a lot of choices, but it had never grated the way it did lately. She walked toward the front entrance. She could hear funk music playing on a radio. There were metal bars across the glass storefront. Rows of empty beds filled the front space, at least twenty deep and four across. The girls weren’t allowed to stay here during the day. Ostensibly, they were supposed to be out looking for jobs. The front door was propped open and the smell of the building airing out was as unpleasant as anything Amanda had smelled in the last week.

“Help you?” a man called over the music. He was dressed like a hippie, wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors. His sandy blond mustache was long and droopy. A brown fedora was pulled low on his head. He was extremely tall and lanky. His walk was more of an amble.

Evelyn mumbled, “He looks like Spike, Snoopy’s brother.”

Amanda didn’t share that she’d been thinking the same thing. She called to the man, “We’re looking for a Mr. Trask?”

He shook his head as he walked over. “No Trask here, ladies. I’m Trey Callahan.”

“Trey,” Evelyn and Amanda said in unison. At least Bennett had been close. There was no telling what he thought Amanda and Evelyn were called. If he gave it any thought at all.

“So.” Callahan flashed a laconic smile, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I’m guessing one of the girls is in trouble, in which case, I probably can’t help you. I’m neutral, like Switzerland. You dig?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said. Like Amanda, she had to look up at the man. He was at least six feet tall. “Maybe this will change your mind: We’re here about Lucy Bennett.”

His easygoing demeanor dropped. “You’re right. I’ll do anything I can to help. God rest her troubled soul.”

Amanda said, “We were hoping you could tell us about her. Give us an idea of who she was, with whom she associated?”

“Let’s go to my office.” He stood to the side, indicating they should go first. Despite his hippie appearance, someone had managed to teach him manners.

Amanda followed Evelyn into Callahan’s office. The space was small but cheerful. The walls were painted a bright orange. Posters from various funk bands were pinned around the room. She catalogued the items on his desk: a framed photograph of a young woman holding a Doberman puppy. A rusted Slinky. A thick stack of typewriter paper held together by a rubber band. There was a sweet odor in the air. Amanda glanced at the ashtray, which looked recently emptied.

Callahan turned off the transistor radio on his desk. He indicated a set of chairs and waited for Evelyn and Amanda to sit before dragging his own chair out from behind the desk and sitting adjacent to them. It was a tactful move, Amanda realized. He’d managed to put them all on the same level.

Evelyn took a spiral-bound notebook out of her purse. She was very businesslike. “Mr. Callahan, you work here in what capacity?”

“Director. Janitor. Job counselor. Priest.” He held out his hands, indicating the office. Amanda realized he was bigger than she first thought. His shoulders were broad. His frame filled the chair. “It doesn’t pay much, but it gives me time to work on my book.” He placed his palm on top of the stacked typewriter pages. “I’m doing an Atlanta version of Breakfast of Champions.”

Amanda knew better than to engage him about the project. Her professors at school could wax on for hours. “Are you the only one who works here?”

“My fiancée works the night shift. She’s finishing her nursing degree at Georgia Baptist.” He pointed to the framed photo of the woman and the dog, flashing a used-car salesman’s smile. “Trust me, ladies, we’re all aboveboard here.”

Evelyn wrote this down, though it was hardly germane. “Can you tell us about Lucy Bennett?”

Callahan seemed troubled. “Lucy was different from the usual clientele. She spoke properly, for one. She was tough, but there was a softness underneath.” He indicated the outer room, all the empty beds. “A lot of these girls come from troubled families. They’ve been injured in some way. In a bad way.” He paused. “You picking up what I’m putting down?”

“I feel you,” Evelyn offered, as if she spoke jive every day. “You’re saying Lucy wasn’t like the other gals?”

“Lucy had been hurt. You could tell that about her. All of these girls have been hurt. You don’t end up on the streets because you’re happy.” He leaned back in the chair. His legs were spread wide. Amanda could not help but be fascinated by the way a change of posture turned him from a boy into a man. Initially, she’d assumed he was her age, though looking at him now, he seemed closer to thirty.

Evelyn asked, “Did Lucy have any friends?”

“None of these girls are really friends,” Callahan admitted. “Lucy chilled with her group. Their pimp was Dwayne Mathison. Goes by the name Juice. Though I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

Amanda picked at an invisible piece of lint on her skirt. The ghetto gossip mill was more streamlined than the APD’s. She guessed Callahan knew that Juice had almost assaulted them.

Evelyn asked, “When’s the last time you saw Lucy?”

“Over a year ago.”

“You seem to remember a lot about her.”

“I had a soft spot for her.” He held up his hand. “Not what you’re thinking. It was nothing like that. Lucy was smart. We talked about literature. She was a voracious reader. Had these dreams about giving up the life and going to college one day. I told her about my book. Let her read some pages, even. She was down with it, you know? Got what I was doing.” He shrugged. “I was trying to help her, but she wasn’t ready for it.”

“Did she ever have contact with her family?”

His hands gripped the arms of the chair. “That why y’all are here?”

Evelyn was better at sounding clueless than Amanda. “I don’t understand.”

“Lucy’s brother. He send you here to tell me to keep my mouth shut?”

“We don’t work for Mr. Bennett,” Amanda assured the man. “He told us that he came here looking for his sister. We’re simply following up.”

Callahan didn’t answer immediately. “Last year. Guy comes in here throwing his weight around. He was dressed real fly. Arrogant as hell.” That sounded like Hank Bennett all right. “Wanted to know did I give Lucy the letter he mailed.”

“Did you?”

“Of course I did.” His grip loosened. “Poor thing couldn’t bring herself to open it. Her hands were shaking so hard I had to put it in her purse for her. I never found out if she read it. She disappeared a week, maybe two weeks, later.”

“When was this?”

“Like I said, about a year ago. August, maybe July? It was still hot as Hades, I remember that.”

“You haven’t seen Hank Bennett before or since?”

“I count myself lucky for that.” He shifted in the chair. “Man wouldn’t even shake my hand. I guess he was scared the groovy would rub off.”

Evelyn asked, “I know it’s been a while, but do you remember the other girls Lucy hung around with?”

“Uh …” He pushed up his sunglasses and pressed his fingers into his eyes as he thought it out. “Jane Delray, Mary something, and …” He dropped the glasses back down. “Kitty somebody. She wasn’t here much—most nights, she was over at Techwood, but I got the feeling that wasn’t a permanent situation. I never got her last name. She was a lot more like Lucy than the other girls. Not a stranger to the King’s English, if you catch my drift. But they hated each other. Couldn’t stand to be in the same room together.”

Amanda didn’t let herself look at Evelyn, but she could feel her own excitement reflecting off the other woman. “This place at Techwood—did Kitty have an apartment there?”

“I dunno. Could be. Kitty’s the type of gal who’s good at getting what she wants.”

“Did Lucy and Kitty know each other from before?”

“I don’t think so.” He silently considered the question, then shook his head. “They were just the kind of girls who couldn’t get along with each other. Too much alike, I expect.” He leaned forward. “I’m a student of sociology, you dig? All good writers are. That’s the focus of my work. The streets are my dissertation, if you will.”

Evelyn seemed to understand exactly what the man was saying. “You have a theory?”

“The pimps know how to pit these types against each other. They make it clear only one can be their number one girl. Some of the gals are okay with being second string. They’re used to being kicked down, you dig? But then some of them want to fight for the top. They’ll do whatever it takes to be number one. Work harder. Work longer. It’s survival of the fittest. They gotta be on that number one podium. Meanwhile the pimps just sit back and laugh.”

Sociology be damned. Amanda had figured that out back in high school. “When’s the last time you saw Kitty?”

“Maybe a year ago?” he guessed. “She wasn’t spending much time here. That’s around the time the church off Juniper opened up a soup kitchen. I think that was more Kitty’s scene. Less competition there, anyway.”

Evelyn asked, “Do you remember if Kitty stopped coming here before or after Lucy disappeared?”

“After. Maybe a couple of weeks? Not as long as a month. They might remember her at the church. Like I said, that was more Kitty’s scene. She was fascinated by redemption. I gathered she had a religious upbringing. For all her faults, Kitty’s a prayerful woman.”

Amanda had a hard time imagining a streetwalker feeling close to the Lord. “Do you know the name of the church?”

“No idea, but it’s got a big black cross painted on the front. Run by a tall brother, real clean-cut. Well spoken.”

“Brother,” Evelyn echoed. “You mean he’s Negro?”

Callahan chuckled. “No, sister. I mean he’s a brother in Christ. At the end of the day, we all shuffle off the same mortal coils.”

“Hamlet,” Amanda said. She’d studied Shakespeare two quarters ago.

Callahan lifted up his sunglasses and winked at her. His eyes were bloodshot. The lashes reminded her of the teeth on a Venus flytrap. “ ‘Be all my sins remembered,’ fair Ophelia.”

Amanda felt a flash of embarrassment.

Thankfully, Evelyn took over. “This man at the church. Do you know his name?”

“No idea. Kind of an asshole, if you ask me. Wants to argue about books and shit but you can tell he’s never read one in his life.” Callahan dropped his sunglasses back into place. “You know, I really thought Lucy would tell me goodbye before she left. Like I said, we had a thing. A platonic thing. Maybe she was too ashamed. These girls don’t usually stay put for long. Their pimp gets tired of them not earning enough. He trades them off to the next guy down the line. Sometimes, they just move on. A few go back home, if their families will have them. The rest end up down at the Gradys.”

“Gradys,” Amanda repeated. It was strange to hear this word coming out of a white man’s mouth. Only the blacks called Grady Hospital the Gradys. The name dated back to when the hospital wards were segregated. Amanda asked, “What about Jane Delray? Have you ever heard of her?”

Callahan gave a surprised laugh. “That sister is crazy mean. She’d cut you just as soon as look at you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Jane was always fighting with the girls. Always stealing their stuff. I finally had to ban her from the mission, and I don’t like to do that to any of them. This is their last resort. They can’t come here, there’s nowhere else for them to go.”

“They can’t go to the soup kitchen?”

“Not if they’re messed up. Brother won’t let them through the door.” Callahan shrugged. “It’s not a bad policy. When these girls come in high, they’re more prone to make trouble. But I can’t just lock the door and leave them on the street.”

“They can’t get assistance from the Housing Authority?”

“Not if they’ve got prostitution on their record. The HA screens them out. They don’t want girls setting up their businesses on the public dime.”

Amanda tried to process the information. She was glad Evelyn was writing this down. “Is there anything else you can remember about Lucy?”

“Just that she was a good girl. I know it’s hard for you to believe, especially working for the po-lice. But all of them started out good. They made a bad choice somewhere along the line, and then they made another one, and pretty soon their lives were nothing but bad choices. Lucy especially. She didn’t deserve to go out like that.” His hands gripped the chair again. His voice took on a hard edge. “I don’t like to break on a brother, but I hope they fry him for this.”

Amanda asked, “What do you mean?”

“It’s already out.” Callahan indicated the radio. “Heard it on the radio before you ladies walked in. Juice was arrested for killing Lucy Bennett. He gave a full confession.” The phone on his desk started ringing. “Excuse me,” he apologized, leaning over to lift the receiver.

Amanda didn’t trust herself to look at Evelyn.

Callahan used his hand to cover the mouthpiece on the phone. “I’m sorry, ladies. This is one of our donors calling. Was there anything else you needed from me?”

“No.” Evelyn stood up. Amanda followed suit. “Thank you for your time.”

The sun was so bright when they walked out of the building that Amanda’s eyes teared up. She shaded herself with her hand as they walked into the parking lot.

“Well.” Evelyn slipped on her Foster Grants. “Arrested.”

“Arrested,” Amanda echoed. “And confessed.”

They both stood by the cars, stunned silent.

Finally, Amanda said, “What do you make of that?”

“I’m flummoxed,” Evelyn admitted. “I suppose Juice could’ve done it. Might’ve done it.” She contradicted herself. “Then again, it’s not that hard to get a confession, especially for Butch and Landry.”

Amanda nodded. At least once a week, Butch and Landry showed up for roll call with cuts and bruises on their knuckles. “You said it yourself: Juice could’ve slipped out of the hospital, murdered Jane, and climbed back in bed with no one realizing he was gone.” Amanda leaned against her car, then thought better of it when the heat singed through her skirt. “Then again, Trey Callahan just confirmed Juice was pimp to both Lucy Bennett and Jane Delray. He would know the difference between the two girls. Why would he confess to killing one when it was the other?”

“I doubt very seriously Rick Landry is letting him get his story out.” She added, “A black man kills a white woman? That’s a hummy if there ever was one.”

She was right. The case would hum right through City Hall. Juice would be in prison before the year was out—if he lived that long.

Both women were silent again. Amanda couldn’t recall a time she’d been more shocked.

And then Evelyn topped it. “Do you think we could speak to him?”

“Speak to whom?”

“Juice.”

The question was as crazy as it was dangerous. “Rick Landry would string us up alive. I didn’t want to tell you, but he was very angry this morning. He complained to Hodge right in front of me about us interfering in his case.”

“What did Hodge say?”

“Nothing, really. The man speaks in riddles. Every question I asked, he just said, ‘That’s a good question.’ It was maddening.”

“That’s his way of telling you to ignore Rick and to keep moving forward.” Evelyn held up her hands to stop Amanda’s protest. “Think about it: If Hodge wanted you to stop looking into this, he would’ve ordered you to stop. He could’ve assigned you to crossing duty. He could’ve benched you and made you file all day. Instead, he told you to skip roll call and meet up with me.” She smiled appreciatively. “It’s very clever, really. He doesn’t tell you what to do, but he makes you want to do it.”

“It’s annoying, is what it is. Why can’t he just speak directly? What’s wrong with that?”

“He was already transferred to Model City for four days. I imagine he’s making sure he doesn’t get sent back.”

“Meanwhile, it’s my head on the chopping block.”

Evelyn seemed to be gauging her own words. “He’s probably afraid of you, Amanda. You must know that a lot of people are.”

Amanda could’ve been knocked down with a feather. “Whatever for?”

“Your father.”

“That’s just silly. Even if my father cared about such things, I’m not a tattletale.”

“They don’t know that.” Evelyn’s voice was gentle. “Sweetheart, it’s just a matter of time before your father’s back in uniform. He still has a lot of powerful friends. There’s bound to be payback. Do you really think people shouldn’t be afraid?”

Amanda didn’t want to admit that she was right about Duke, even while she was wrong about the rest. “I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation. Juice has been arrested for murder. The case is closed. We’d turn the whole department against us if we made trouble.”

“You’re right.” Evelyn looked out into the street, the cars rushing by. “We’re probably fools to care. Juice was going to rape us. Jane hated us on sight. Lucy Bennett was a junkie and a prostitute whose own brother couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her.” She nodded back at the mission. “No matter how well read Snoopy’s brother says she was.” She took off her sunglasses. “What was with that Ophelia line, anyway?”

“It’s from Hamlet.”

“I’m aware of that.” Evelyn sounded testy. “I do read more than magazines, you know.”

Amanda considered it wiser to hold her tongue.

Evelyn put her sunglasses back on. “Ophelia was a tragic figure. She had an abortion and killed herself by falling from a tree.”

“Where do you get that she had an abortion?”

“She took rue. It’s an herb women used to bring about miscarriages. Shakespeare had her passing out flowers and she—” Evelyn shook her head. “Never mind. The point is, are you going to go to the jail or not?”

“Me?” Amanda’s mind couldn’t handle these sudden shifts. “Alone?”

“I told Cindy I’d go to the Five and check the license box for Lucy’s ID.”

“That’s very convenient.”

“Bubba Keller is one of your father’s poker buddies, right?”

Amanda wondered if she was making an allusion to the Klan. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Keller runs the jail.”

“And?”

“And, if you go to the jail and ask to speak with Juice, it’s no big deal. If you go to the jail with me and ask to speak to Juice, it gets back to your father.”

Amanda didn’t know what to say. She felt caught out, as if Evelyn was suddenly privy to all the lies Amanda had told Duke over the last week.

“It’s all right,” Evelyn said. “We all have to answer to someone.”

Evelyn didn’t seem to have to answer to anybody. Amanda said, “Let me get this straight: you want me to waltz into the jail and ask to speak to a prisoner who’s just been arrested for murder?”

Evelyn shrugged. “Why not?”