Part 18 (1/2)

”Maybe you'd better put that in writing.”

”I put anything in writing, it'll be writing you up for insubordination.”

Thinnes didn't say anything more, just looked at Rossi until he turned and walked out of the room. Then he went back to reading his search warrant.

The phone rang and, when Thinnes picked it up, the booking officer asked, ”Detective, you want me to cut this guy loose?”

”Nope,” Thinnes said. ”We're going to throw the book at him.”

The judge didn't consider Thinnes's hunches probable cause, but he liked to hear them anyway-so he said. He was swayed by the fact that Mark Leon had had a controlled substance in his possession and was unable to name the owner of the car he'd been driving.

Thinnes had put drugs and guns in the warrant as a matter of course.

”He really has no standing to challenge a search,” the judge said, ”but I can see where you might want your evidence admissible if Ms. Wilson turns out to be involved.”

Thinnes nodded, and the judge signed the paper with a flourish.

”What'd ya bother with this for?” Sergeant Houlihan of the motor pool handed the warrant back to Thinnes. ”You wanna see what's in a car, just ask. Nothing in here I can't open.”

”The term 'inadmissible' mean anything to you?”

Houlihan raised his hands and waved them at Thinnes. ”Waste of time-you look. You find something, then you get a warrant.”

Thinnes didn't bother to argue. He followed Houlihan to where the red Cavalier was parked and held his hand out for the key. Oster, who seemed fed up enough to walk out, said nothing to anyone.

Thinnes inserted the key and popped the trunk. Before he could even look, Houlihan said, ”Christ!”

”s.h.i.+t!” Oster said.

Thinnes looked down at the human form wrapped in sheets of polyethylene, trussed with clothesline cord. ”I believe we've located Jolene Wilson.”

Forty.

Jolene Wilson's mother lived in an old, yellow brick building that was wrapped around a small dirt courtyard cut in half by a cracked cement walk. The Wilson apartment was in the rear with its front windows facing Belle Plaine over the court. The lobby was typical for the building's age-walls darkened by years of neglect, wainscoting by countless coats of old varnish. The s.p.a.ce smelled of mildew. The white, octagonal ceramic floor tiles were stained and cracked. The lightbulb was dead in its high ceiling fixture overhead. One mailbox in the bank of six had been pried open. Few of the doorbells were intact; loose wires poked from the hole next to the Wilson name. 3B.

The gla.s.s panes in the security door were intact, but the lock was broken. Thinnes and Oster entered a pumpkin-orange stairwell grayed with grime. Each landing was lit by a sash window-two-and-a-half by five feet, with an old, ornate, cast-iron radiator below it. The wooden steps and door and window frames were blackened by the same acc.u.mulation of dirt and old varnish as the woodwork in the lobby. A gaudy, threadbare striped carpet clung to the steps.

Thinnes took them two at a time out of habit. He ended up waiting for Oster on the third-floor landing, noticing-really for the first time-how out of shape his partner was. When Oster finally got to the top, he had to lean over the landing rail, resting on his forearms and breathing hard for several minutes, before he was ready to face the mother. He wiped a glaze of sweat from his face and neck with a handkerchief.

Thinnes rapped on the door of 3B, and it opened a crack. He could see a chain and a pale blue eye. He held his star up.

A woman's voice said, ”If it's about Rory, I ain't seen him since he went to jail.” Her accent was vaguely Southern. One of the city's scores of Appalachian immigrants. A hillbilly.

”Could we come in, ma'am?”

The door closed, and he could hear her fumbling with the chain. She opened the door six, then eight inches but didn't move to let them in.

Caucasian. Five five. Rail thin. No makeup. Washed-out blond hair. It had been a while since she'd dyed it; the dark roots outlined a center part. Thinnes wondered why she'd chosen such a lackl.u.s.ter color. He guessed her age about forty-five, but an old forty-five. Marking time. Ground down by poverty or poor health or loss-he didn't want to know. She wore a faded flowered housedress and cheap slippers of a clas.h.i.+ng pattern. She looked wary, fearful but resigned, as if she'd been expecting bad news all her life and was seldom disappointed. Thinnes had met her many times before. Victims' kin.

He didn't try to sympathize. Her kind was different. They may have been created equal, may even have been born equal, but a lifetime of living without hope had changed them into something else, something smaller and meaner than most people or than what they, themselves, might have been. Knowing that kept him from having delusions about making a difference. He was doing his job. Nothing more he could do.

He said, ”Are you Mrs. Emmalynn Wilson?”

Her right hand gripped the doorjamb above her shoulder. It was rough skinned and heavy veined, with enlarged joints. ”Somethin' happen to Len?”

”Not that I know of. Len your husband?”

She seemed to relax. She nodded.

”Are you the mother of a Jolene Wilson, North Leavitt?”

It seemed to take her a minute to understand the question, then her initial panic seemed to return in spades. ”Oh, Lord! Not Jolene!” She sagged away from the doorway, letting the door gape open.

Thinnes reached to touch, then take hold of her forearm. ”Mrs. Wilson, maybe you'd better sit down.”

She backed into the room, pulling her arm free with an absent sort of annoyance that didn't seem to apply specifically to Thinnes. He followed her-not too closely.

She couldn't seem to meet his eyes. ”What happened to my baby?”

There was no way to break it gently-nothing soft about homicide. ”I'm sorry, Mrs. Wilson. Jolene's been murdered.”

He waited. The first stage of grief is disbelief-denial, the shrinks called it. Thinnes called it shock. Emmalynn Wilson looked like she'd been poleaxed. He looked around. The room was clean but bare, symptomatic of poverty of the spirit if not actual lack of money. There were no pictures, no family mementos. A reclining chair posted in front of a thirty-two-inch TV set told him plenty about the Wilsons.

Thinnes took Emmalynn's arm and steered her to the faded couch at right angles to the recliner's line of sight. She moved like an automaton. ”Mrs. Wilson,” he said, as he settled her on the couch, ”is there someone I can call for you?”

Oster, who'd followed Thinnes in, crossed the room and disappeared through a doorway at the far side.

”Mrs. Wilson,” Thinnes persisted, ”would you like me to call your husband?”

She seemed to find the question puzzling. She shook her head. ”Be soon enough when he gits here.”

Why not? The girl had been dead two days already.

Oster reappeared with two gla.s.ses. One was three-quarters full of water, the other had what looked like a double shot of bourbon in the bottom. He offered her the latter gla.s.s.

The woman took it, sniffed it. Her expression told Thinnes Len was probably a drinker and that his wife didn't approve.

”Medicinal,” Oster said.