Unlucky 13

Chapter 38

Conklin showed up at our work space at half past nine, which was late for him. He hadn’t shaved or combed his hair, and he’d missed a couple of shirt buttons. Either he’d taken a tumble in the clothes dryer or I was looking at the hallmark of new love: late nights, morning delight.

“I just made coffee,” I said, tipping my chin toward the break room.

Conklin said, “Thank God.”

“You’re welcome.”

He headed out and then came back a minute later with a cup of Mocha Java, wrestled his chair out from under the desk, threw himself into it, and raked back his thick brown hair with the fingers of both hands.

He said, “Coffee without doughnuts is like a day without sunshine.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said.

I opened my pencil drawer, took out a packet of peanut butter crackers, and chucked them over to my partner. He caught them on the fly and opened the packet with his teeth.

“Tina and I.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She doesn’t like my politics. I never thought something like that would matter.”

“You had a fight?”

“I guess you always think that someone you like shares your values. I keep getting this wrong.”

“Are you two going to be all right?”

He shrugged, chewing his crackers, and with his mouth full he asked what was new with me.

I found myself telling him that Cindy had come over to my house for dinner last night. I held back that she had wanted to play with the baby.

Conklin said, “How is Cindy? She didn’t look good at the wedding. She’s lost weight. She hardly spoke to me. Is she all right?”

I said, “Men are so clueless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Anyway. A few days ago, I stupidly mentioned to her what Brady told us—that Morales might have been seen in Wisconsin. Cindy decided to follow up in person.”

Conklin choked on his coffee, and when he’d stopped sputtering, he stared at me and said, “You’re saying she went to Wisconsin to find Mackie Morales? By herself? Then what was she going to do?”

I filled my partner in on Cindy’s search for our former summer intern with a taste for murder—that she was working on a career move. “What she is calling a once-in-a-lifetime story.”

Conklin’s face bent through several gradations of shocked disbelief as I told him what Cindy had uncovered in the past few days, a trail of incidents that spelled out that Mackie Morales had resurfaced.

“Cindy wasn’t telling me everything,” I said to Rich. “When I prodded her, she said, and I quote, ‘I’ll tell you if and when I know more.’”

Conklin crumpled his empty cup and tossed it into the trash. He said, “You tried to talk her out of this? Never mind. I know what she’s like. I hope to God Mackie doesn’t find out that Cindy is dogging her.”

My desk phone rang too many times before I finally punched the button.

A man’s voice said, “Sergeant, this is Lou Frye. From Chuck’s Prime.”

I signaled to Richie to pick up on line four, and I told Frye that Conklin was on the line.

Frye coughed and wheezed, then got enough wind to say, “Jansing got a text from the extortionist saying he’s going to call today with a demand. I guess you want to be here.”

After Cindy and Conklin broke up, my partner lived in his car for a couple of weeks and used the office facilities until he found a new place to live. Now he opened his desk drawer and took out his toiletry kit, which still lived in his desk. He rooted around and pulled out a razor, then headed toward the men’s room.

“We’re on our way,” I said to Louis Frye.