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The rape had taken place two nights before. She had not gone to the hospital, so there was no rape kit. She had come home and scrubbed herself in the shower after throwing up in the gutter. She had slept with Morrison several times over the last couple of months and it wouldn't make any difference, she said. They'd call it consensual, she said: "And they'd be right. I let it happen."

I kept shaking my head no. She was turning on herself, giving him a way out. I needed the strong side of her.

"Don't go there, Marci. Husbands get convicted of raping their wives. Don't go there," I said. "You can file charges against him."

I tried to make my voice sound convincing, even while she kept shaking her head no, no, no.

"Where did this happen, Marci?" I said, still thinking evidence, evidence.

"Out in the Glades," she said. "Way out past the toll booth on the Alley."

"All right. Do you think you could find it again, this place out in the Glades?"

She shook her head, still facing the length of the bar away from me and the other men now began to take notice.

"There's no way I would recognize it. It was dark when he took me there. It's an unmarked turnoff."

"Had he taken you there before?" I asked. Every human has a pattern, does what he does in a way or in a place that he considers a comfort zone. The bars, the women running the show in those bars, the night as cover.

She nodded her head and turned away, picked up the empty shot glass but did not move to fill it.

"You'll never find it," she said.

I looked across at myself in the mirror. I knew I could take this all to Richards. God knows she'd be all over Morrison if she thought she could substantiate another officer raping a woman. She'd shot and killed the last one.

But I also knew the system, the PBA lawyers, the disparagement of the victim, the drawn out court process with filings and cross- filings. My own mother had taken a more direct route to justice and I'd praised her for it. If there were other victims, they too would be buried forever in the paperwork. If Morrison was our guy, it might be the best chance to come up with evidence to give those girls and their families some justice. If Morrison wasn't our guy, at least we'd have the chance to nail his ass.

I knew I was freelancing on this. I'd have to tell Richards in either case, but not yet.

"All right. Then there's another way," I said. "But it would involve some risk-to you."

She turned around and her eyes were dry and hard.

"Then I'm in."

CHAPTER 25

I set up surveillance on Kim's across the street in the movie house parking lot. I could see the west side door to the bar and the two south exits of the shopping center. O'Shea had borrowed an unmarked Camaro from the security firm he worked for and was on the other side with a sight line to the front door of the bar and the east and north exits. Marci was inside, setting up her boyfriend.

As far as O'Shea knew, we were tagging Morrison and the girl with the chance of finding a drug connection. That's what I'd told him when I recruited him, but I wasn't dumb enough not to think he was stringing the pieces together. But I'd convinced myself that even if I was wrong, I wasn't giving him any outs. O'Shea would still be there, and the fact that he was willing to spend this much time with me was easing my doubts that he was the man Richards thought he was.

We had sketched out a plan that was simple and believable because the bulk of it was true. I'd learned a long time ago that the trick to getting confidential informants to lie well was to give them enough truth to sell it.

All I wanted Marci to do was to call Morrison, tell him that she had gotten a personal visit from the tall guy who'd been with the woman detective. When he asked her what I'd talked about, she needed to convince him she was too scared to tell him over the phone. That she needed to see him. I didn't need to instruct her to sound scared. She was tough, she was angry, but her fear was real. She did exactly as we had planned and Morrison told her he'd be by before the end of her shift. She called me. I called O'Shea.

O'Shea brought a couple of Nextel cell phones from his job so we could stay instantly connected. It was the way business was done. A high tweet came from the cell. I clicked back.

"Your boy is here," O'Shea's voice came over the Nextel. "And this one's got some balls, Freeman. He's in his goddamn squad car."

"You're sure?"

"Same guy I snapped the picture of. He parked the unit over on the other side of the lot and is walking into the front door of the bar now."

"He's in uniform?"

"No. Plainclothes."

"What's the number on the car?" I asked, and when O'Shea read it off I matched it to the number I'd scribbled down when watching the cop car in the parking lot, thinking it was security, knowing now that it was no such thing.

"When he comes back out, you're on him; if he leaves on your side, I'll follow and we can switch up the line."

"I know how to work a two-man tail, Freeman."

"Yeah, all right," I said. I was nervous. A two-tail was not a difficult technique, but South Florida was not a big urban city like Philly where parallel streets are a common layout and traffic moves like patterned waves that rush and stop at lights. But if I was correct, or better, lucky, most of this tail was going to be on the highway leading out to the western part of the county to the Glades.

If I'd read Marci right, she would be in Kim's now, down in front of the last seat, telling Kyle that I was a private investigator working for the family of some bartender from up north who'd disappeared down here months ago. In a way, it was a truth.

She would tell him that I had worked a theory that the girl had been picked up by someone who had dated her, killed her and then dumped her body. Another truth, and when I had gone over this part with Marci she had again blanched and the look on her face was exactly the look I hoped she was using now.

"And if he asks you why I think that, you tell him that I've found evidence, DNA evidence, and all I need to do now is find corroborating witnesses to set up a time line so the authorities will take the cases seriously."

The tricky part, I told her, would be if he didn't ask about where I got DNA. Then she was going to have to offer up the lie about my finding a body in the Glades. She had nodded at the instructions, said she could do it. But this wasn't some drunk she would be trying to convince. There was something raw about the way she used his name. I could not dismiss the feeling that she was too anxious to hurt this guy and if that showed through, no way was this going to work.

"Whatever you do, Marci," I'd said, "don't go with him." She'd tightened her mouth and I repeated my instruction. "Don't go with him or it's off."

Morrison was inside for forty-five minutes. O'Shea buzzed me when he came out.

"Guy's marchin,' Freeman," he said into the cell. "Looks like a man on a mission and hasn't looked left or right yet."

I started my truck, figuring his pattern would be the same and he would exit the center through the road in front of me just like he had the night his headlights had caught me on the stakeout.

"Headin' your way, Freeman," O'Shea said. "I'll fall in behind."

I pressed my head against the driver's side window, using the frame strut to partially hide behind and watched as the cruiser swung around the corner and onto the street. Morrison pulled a rolling stop through the first stop sign and I had to come out fast to stay within a reasonable distance. Either he was so focused he wasn't paying attention, or he was just arrogant. Both were good things. He wouldn't be thinking of a tail.

We were heading west through a residential area, then he took a right back toward Sunrise Boulevard to catch a light. It was the same way I would have gone to get on the main strip west toward the expressway.

"O'Shea, head up the back way to the park so you can get in behind him," I said into the Nextel. "I'm going to have to stop at the light with him and he's going to get a good look at my truck and I'll have to fall back to keep him from getting familiar."