“Either of them around?” Sam asked.
“They’re in the kitchen. At least, Chita was.”
“We’d like to talk to them,” Sonora said.
“What’s this all about?”
Sonora smiled.
“Okay then,” Celia Anders said. “I’ll get ’em.”
Sonora glanced at her watch. Both Tim and Heather should be snug in school. Provided, of course, Heather’s bus hadn’t wrecked or been hijacked by terrorists, and some middle-aged man in a raincoat hadn’t forced Tim into his nondescript brown car. Sonora sighed, and Sam looked at her. He had an air of distraction that let her know he was upset. Annie was no doubt having a rough morning.
“Okay?”
He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “We got her settled.”
Sonora heard muted female voices, then a tall woman with a pure vanilla complexion and frizzy red-gold hair walked in, followed by Celia Anders. They looked remarkable, walking together, one tall, thin, and confident, the other short and squat, shoulders hunched together as if she expected to be hit.
“Hi, I’m Chita Childers.”
Her voice was thin and she’d sing soprano. Her eyes were blue and her hair was long, pulled up on the sides with a silver-and-turquoise barrette. She wore jeans and a Bengals T-shirt.
“I’m Sonora Blair, this is Sam Delarosa, Cincinnati Police.”
“What did you want to see me about?” She looked over her shoulder. “Ronnie!”
“I’m in the bathroom.” The voice was muted, male, irritable.
Sonora put the wedding picture on the counter.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Chita Childers squinted and stared down at the picture. “Yeah, this one. He’s here all the time.”
She stabbed a long skinny finger at Keaton Daniels. Her nails were long and coated with maroon polish. Glued in the corner of each squared-off nail was a tiny zircon, glinting like a diamond.
“This guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he in last night?”
Childers squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head upward to aid her memory. So all the thoughts in the top of her head could slide into her brain, Sonora thought.
“No, I don’t think so. He hasn’t been in that much lately. For a while, he was here two or three nights a week. But”—she opened her eyes—“not last night.”
“Who about the other one?”
“The woman?”
“Either.”
“The woman, I don’t know. She’s a type. Ronnie might remember.”
“And the guy?” Sonora pointed to Mark Daniels.
From somewhere close came the sound of a flushing toilet, the noise of running water, a door opening, closing. A man in his mid-to late thirties, slender, thinning brown hair and a mustache, came in from the dining room. He stopped in the doorway.
“Oh.”
“Police Specialists Blair and Delarosa,” Sonora said. “Didn’t mean to catch you at a bad time.”
Knapp’s cheeks went dusky red. Sam coughed and cleared his throat.
Knapp extended a hand to Sonora and gave her a firm, damp handshake. He glanced at Celia. “We’re out of paper towels in the bathroom, by the way.” Sonora wiped her hands on the back of her jacket and settled back down on the stool.
Sam scooted the picture across the bar. “Mr. Knapp, did any of these people come in last night?”
Knapp picked up the picture and studied it. “Last night, hmmm. That one didn’t.”
Sonora rubbed her stomach. “Which one?”
Knapp flipped the picture around and pointed to Keaton Daniels. “This one. He used to come in a lot, but I haven’t seen him lately. The other guy was here, though.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Talking to the blonde.”
Sonora felt rather than saw Sam tensing. She kept her voice casual. “What blonde?”
“Just some girl.”
“She a regular?”
“Been in a few times.”
“What blonde is this?” Chita Childers asked.
“You’ve seen her. Kind of little. Delicate, sort of. Never smiles.”
“How long did she talk to this guy?” Sonora pointed to Mark’s picture.
“Awhile.”
“Do you remember how long?”
“Not really.”
“An hour?”
“Maybe not that long.”
“Just a few minutes? Half an hour?”
“Longer than half an hour. Like maybe forty-five minutes. Like that. They had a drink together. She drinks Bud from the bottle.”
“What was he drinking?”
“Draft beer. Bourbon chaser.”
“Did they leave together?”
“No.”
“Who left first?”
“Don’t know.”
“About what time?”
“Jeez, I really don’t know. Before eleven.”
Chita Childers edged forward, and Celia Anders had to step backward. “She must have left before he did, then. ’Cause this guy stayed late.”
“How late?” Sam said.
“Almost midnight. I thought he’d be around to close us down.”
Sam smiled at Celia Anders, then turned his attention to Chita Childers. Sonora leaned into the back of the stool.
“And the blonde had left by then?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“He talk to anyone else?”
Chita shrugged. “He talked to lots of people. He talked to me. How come? He in some kind of trouble?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead? Killed?”
“Burned to death in his car.”
“That guy? I heard that on the news this morning.” She gripped the edge of the bar, eyes wide. “Oh, God, and I just talked to him. He was so young, too. I actually carded him. The news said somebody burned him alive.”
Ronnie Knapp sat down on a stool, turning it so he faced Sonora. “You think maybe this blonde saw the killer?”
Sonora kept her voice careful. “It’s possible. Right now we’re trying to reconstruct Daniels’s last hours. This blond woman—you didn’t overhear a name, by any chance?”
Ronnie and Chita both frowned. Chita’s tongue came out—more help with concentration. Then she shook her head.
Sonora looked at Ronnie. “You?”
“No.”
“How’d she pay? Cash? Credit card?”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“She tip?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Stingy? Generous?”
“Kind of in the middle.”
“Cash or on credit?”
“Cash.”
“All right. Gather up all your credit receipts for last night, and make copies. In fact, we’ll need copies of everything that’s come in over the last, say, six weeks.”
Ronnie nodded glumly.
Sonora smiled. “We appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Knapp. It would help us a lot if you’d bring the receipts down to our office today and make a formal statement. We’ll make an appointment for you to get with our artist on a sketch of this blonde. We’re on the fifth floor of the Board of Elections building, 825 Broadway. Public parking lot a block away. Just tell the man in the booth out front what you’re there for, and he’ll tell you where to go.”
Ronnie and Chita acquired the glazed and wary look of people who suddenly found themselves in the middle of a murder investigation.
“As soon as possible,” Sonora said.
“What if she comes back in?” Celia Anders had been left out and didn’t like it.
Sonora took a card from her jacket pocket.
“She comes back in, call me, anytime. If I’m not there, be sure and explain to the detective who answers the phone, don’t just leave a message. Here, this is my home number.” Sonora scrawled on the back of the card with a pen. “Any of you see her again, don’t approach her, just give me a call.”
“Out of earshot,” Celia said.
Sam grinned at her.
“There a pay phone here?” Sonora asked.
Celia pointed down a dark hallway to the left of the bar. “Right between the bathrooms.”
“Works okay?”
Ronnie nodded.
“Get pretty noisy in here last night? You have a crowd?”
“Not bad for a weeknight. We offer twofers from four to seven and that brings people in on their way home from work.”
Sonora looked at Ronnie. “Tell me everything you remember about the blonde.”
Ronnie closed his eyes and his brow furrowed. “She was real blond.”
“Real blond? Like me?”
He opened his eyes. “Lighter.”
Sonora sighed. “Look dyed?”
“Not really, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. It didn’t have that fakey, cotton candy look to it. It was very light. Kind of collar length and turned under. Very … kind of … ethereal.”
Chita Childers made a rude noise. “Ethereal? It was dyed, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.”
“Eyes?” Sonora asked.
“Brown. Big brown eyes. Kind of … funny.”
“How could she have funny eyes?” Chita said.
Sonora clenched her fist, let it go. Smiled at Chita Childers and looked back at Ronnie.
“Brown eyes,” Ronnie said.
“Blue,” Chita chimed in. They glared at each other.
“Maybe she changed them. With contacts.” Celia Anders looked pleased.
Sonora glanced at Sam. The old witness shuffle.
Ronnie scratched his chin and looked at Sonora. “She’s very small. Shorter even than you.”
“Wow,” Sam said. “Pretty short, huh?”
Ronnie grinned. “She looked kind of, I don’t know, fragile? But she never smiled. Oh, and her lips were scarred. Like she bit them a lot.”
“She talk to a lot of guys? Flirt a lot?”
“Not with me. I thought she seemed kind of shy. I remember being surprised she was talking to that guy. In the picture.”
“She was dressed to kill,” Chita said. “Short black jean skirt, and cowboy boots, and a bodysuit. Lots of makeup and long earrings.”
Ronnie nodded. “Yeah. She had on a short skirt. I noticed that.”
Chita sounded deceptively sweet. “She’s come in before, dressed like that. I’ve seen her talking to the other one.”
Sonora turned the picture around, her fingertips grazing the features of Keaton Daniels. “The other one? This one?”
“Yeah, him.”
“The woman in the picture. The bride here. You ever see her come in?”
Chita frowned and shook her head. “Not that I remember.”
Sonora passed the picture to Ronnie.
“No. Her I would remember.”
“I just bet you would,” Chita muttered, and was politely ignored. Ronnie handed the picture to Sonora, but Celia Anders intercepted it and gave it a good look. Sonora thought of sticky fingerprints. It was high time for copies.
Sam pulled his ear. “Did Mark Daniels or the blonde use the phone? Ask for change, maybe?”
Negative. Blank looks. The witness fairy wasn’t going to come.
Sonora climbed down from the stool, took her purse with her, found a quarter to call her answering machine and check out the phone. She listened. No emergencies. And the pay phone worked. She pulled out her notebook and jotted down the number. They could pull records from the phone company. She wanted to know if Keaton Daniels had been called from the bar.
8
Sonora went into the Board of Elections building and took the elevator to the fifth floor, to Homicide. There were Nonsmoking signs in three places, one of them over a metal ashtray. Crimestoppers wanted-posters were pinned neatly on a bulletin board. There were no coats in the coatrack out front. There never were.
A woman sat in the glass booth doing a crossword puzzle, and Sonora waved. The door on the left led to the Crime Scene Unit, the other to Homicide. Both warned against entry without proper police escort.
Sonora veered right, walked past the worn-down interview rooms, smelling fresh coffee. The box outside the door of the brass’s office was full of soda cans. Homicide recycled. As always, she glanced at the poster board that listed homicides for the year, solved and unsolved. Most of the unsolved were drug drive-bys. Hard as hell to track and prove, and the only satisfaction was in knowing that the shooter had a good chance of showing up on the board as a victim sometime in the next few months.
Mark Daniels was the latest entry.
Everyone was in, and the energy level was high. A lot of people on the phones, and Sonora getting speculative looks. Daniels was a real whodunit, and the other detectives were being pulled off their cases to run down leads.
This one would be a headliner.
The message light on her phone was lit and blinking. Her desk, piled with forms, files, a Rolodex, an evidence bag, and a half-filled can of Coke, was placed in the center of the room, butted up to Sam’s. Every desk had a plastic-wrapped teddy bear on top—some new program or other. A grant for every cop to carry a stuffed animal to give to children trapped in the crossfire of adults who screwed up. Sonora tossed her purse underneath the desk and kicked it where it would be out of range of the wheels of her chair.
Her phone rang just as she settled into her chair. “Homicide, Sonora Blair.”
“Can I please speak to one of the detectives?”
“You’re speaking to one.”
“You’re not the secretary?”
“No, I’m not the secretary.”
Sonora heard a laugh, looked over her shoulder at Gruber.
He grinned. “They want a real cop, I’m available.”
Sonora put a hand over the phone. “Make yourself useful, honey, and get me a cup of coffee.”
Gruber looked her up and down in a way guaranteed to annoy. He had bedroom eyes, a perpetual slump to his shoulders, a swarthy complexion, and New Jersey manners that offended some people and attracted young women.
Sonora focused on the voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry?”
“You know that guy that burned up?”
Sonora frowned and picked up a pen. “What guy is that?”
“The one in the news. They didn’t give his name. But I think I better explain to you the situation with my brother-in-law, make of it what you will.”
Not much, Sonora thought. She made a face, took useless notes. No stone unturned.
“Another nut,” she said, hanging up the phone.
“You attract ’em,” Gruber said. “’Member when we took you out trawling? You pulled in the weirdest nutcases, even for a hooker detail.”
Sonora nodded. She’d hated and resented the prostitution detail and had been unable to refrain from giving prospective johns the copper’s eyefuck. Only one or two had been inexperienced or desperate or intrigued enough to try and do business. Sonora had been pulled off the streets after two weeks.
“I always wondered if you screwed up on purpose, you know? To get off that detail.”
Sonora smiled. “Keep wondering, Gruber.”
“Molliter didn’t think so, but I figured maybe you did.”
“Where is old Molliter these days? He quit and become a television evangelist?”
“Working personal crime since last Christmas.”
“Molliter?”
Gruber folded his arms and cocked his head sideways. “Can’t you just hear him lecturing the rape victims on provocative clothing and those jiggly walks?”
Sonora bit her lip. Actually, she could.
Gruber shrugged. “Yeah, well. Bad choice. They had to pull him out of vice, he was trying to save souls. Didn’t really fit in down there, if you know what I mean.”
Sonora draped her jacket over the back of her chair. Thought about coffee, thought about ulcers, decided against the one she had some choice about. The message light on he
r machine was still blinking. She settled into her chair and pushed the button.
One informant looking for a handout, a terse one from Chas, who was feeling neglected, a coroner’s assistant about the suicide she hadn’t liked. There was a message from one of the mothers from Heather’s class reminding her to send cupcakes for day after tomorrow (shit, Sonora thought) and the one from Tim, letting her know that Heather had gotten on the bus okay, he was on his way, and yes he had his keys.
Sonora took out a scratch pad, roughing out the description she would put out on the NCIC. Early days yet, but this one looked like a repeater, and she wasn’t asking permission. Under key points, she put homicide involving white female, victim white male, burned to death in car. She chewed the end of her pen.
She felt a large hand on her shoulder and a familiar presence by her side. “Sonora, girl, that pen taste good, or you didn’t get any breakfast?”
Gruber waved a hand. “It’s an oral thing. What she needs …” He caught the expression on Sonora’s face. Trailed off.
“Wise,” she told him.
She swiveled her chair and looked at her partner, and flashed back to a night four years ago, before she really knew Sam’s wife, Shelly, and, hell, she’d decided not to feel guilty about that anymore. Sometimes she looked at Sam and still felt the urge. Something about Gruber put thoughts like that in her head.
“Crick wants us,” Sam said.
The brass had their own office, more desks butted together, phones, files. Crick was at the computer when Sam and Sonora walked in, and he looked irritable. He did not get along with the department terminals, which were inferior to the setup he had at home. He was often overheard making rude comments about archaic software.
Loosen your tie, Sonora thought. Your disposition will improve. Someday she would say it out loud.
“Sit down, Blair. Delarosa.” Crick rolled his chair backward. Sam took two chairs from behind empty desks, straddled one, aimed the other at Sonora. She stopped it with her foot. “God, the two of you. Just sit.”
Sonora glanced at Sam and wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking. Were they caught? Were they going to get fired?”
“How are you doing on that suicide?” Crick said.
Slow, Sonora thought. Way behind. She cleared her throat. “Family went squirrelly over the autopsy, Sergeant. We’re moving them along easy, trying to keep things from boiling over.”
Flashpoint Page 5