Mia held up her hand. „First, let us check the records to see if Genny O’Reilly had a child at all before we get carried away on his possible age. Then we’ll check marriage and birth records on her children’s children. Hank and Genny’s grandchildren would be anywhere from twenty to forty years old and that’s just the right age.“
„If this lead proves true,“ said Miles thoughtfully, „your killer would have had to know his biological father’s identity to get the bullet mold or at a minimum the Worth family’s maker’s mark. I’m wondering about the man Genny O’Reilly married. How would he react to having a child that wasn’t his? How would the child be treated? If there were other children born later, would the first child, the bastard child, be singled out? It could lead to feelings of resentment and anger.“ Westphalen shrugged. „Or it could mean nothing.“
„Get Genny O’Reilly’s records and find out,“ Spinnelli said. „What else do we have?“
Abe leaned forward. „The old man, Grayson James, said he and Hank Worth would go up to Worth’s father’s property and practice their shooting. Mia, do you remember the other day when you thought he might have a private target range?“
Mia’s eyes gleamed. „We can check property records for land owned by the Worths.“
Spinnelli’s marker squeaked as he wrote. „What else?“
„I’ve been working on identifying the chain he used to strangle Ramey,“ Jack said. „We made a cast of the ligature marks and I found a few men’s chains that are similar in size.“ He laid three chains on the table. „The one closest to the plaster cast is the middle one.“
„Dog tags,“ Spinnelli said. „I’ve seen men wear then-dog tags on a chain like this.“
Mia brought a chain from under her blouse. „Like this?“ A set of military ID tags hung from the end of the chain.
„My dad gave me his tags when I joined the force. Said his tags kept him alive in ‘Nam and hoped they’d keep me alive in uniform.“
„We already thought he could have been military, being a sharpshooter,“ Abe said, excitement in his voice. „It makes sense.“
Spinnelli paced from the whiteboard to the table and back again. „Good, good. Track him down and if you run into any problems with military records, let me know. I’ll get the governor involved.“ He grimaced. „It’ll give him something to do so he’ll stop calling the mayor who’ll stop calling me. Anything else?“ No one said anything and Spinnelli pointed to Detective Murphy, who’d been sitting quietly. „Murphy, update us on Munoz’s gun.“
„We canvassed the pawnshops,“ Murphy said. He was a serious man with a rumpled suit. Kristen knew him to be a good cop. Methodical. „We found the gun late last night.“
„Any useful prints?“ Abe asked.
Murphy nodded. „Yeah, they were in the system. Street punk, goes by Boom-Boom. We’ve got out an APB. Hopefully we’ll find him and hopefully he saw something useful Monday night.“
Spinnelli capped his markers. „And I’ll get Aaron Jenkins’s juvie record unsealed. Now that he’s dead, there shouldn’t be a problem.“
Mia stood up. „Records opens at nine and I want to be first in line. You ready, Abe?“
Abe pulled on his coat and Kristen had to look away before her mouth started watering. They’d done nothing sexual the night before and somehow that made her wish they had. First they’d dealt with CSU, then the Medical Examiner’s Office as they’d picked up Jenkins’s body. Then when everyone had gone, Abe kissed her good night, a long, liquid, yearning kiss after which he patted her behind and sent her off to bed. He’d bedded down on the sofa, just as he’d promised, leaving her heart thundering and her mind wondering what would have happened had she asked him to tuck her into bed. He’d checked on her several times during the night and each time she’d been so tempted to ask him to stay. But she didn’t, and when sleep finally came, her dreams were full of hot images that still had her nerves humming.
„I’m driving, Mitchell, so I can pick lunch.“ He stopped by Kristen’s chair and bent down to murmur in her ear, „Don’t go anywhere by yourself. Not even to Owen’s. Please.“
Her heart clenched at the tender worry in his eyes. „I promise. I’ll stay here all day.“
Abe straightened. „Maybe not all day,“ he said cryptically.
„Abe,“ Spinnelli said soberly, „I heard about what happened to your dad last night. Until we can get something concrete on Conti, be careful, all of you.“
Wednesday, February 25,
10:00 A.M.
„All those?“ Abe asked, eyeing the stack of huge volumes. „We’ll be here for days.“
The clerk, whose name was Tina, shot him a sympathetic look. „The marriage licenses from the forties aren’t computerized yet,“ she said. „But it isn’t as bad as it looks. What’s the name and the date?“
„Genny O’Reilly,“ Mia answered, looking over the woman’s shoulder. „She got married sometime in the fall of 1943.“
Tina slid index cards in the volume to mark the pages. „It will be between these cards. If you look yourselves I can find those property listings you were looking for.“
„We’ll look for Genny,“ said Mia. „You can help us find land owned by a man named Worth. We don’t know exactly where it was, just that it was north of the city.“
Tina bit her lip. „You have a first name, maybe?“
Abe shook his head. „Our source just called him Mr. Worth. His son’s name was Hank, if that helps. Maybe Hank was a junior.“
Tina shrugged. „I’ll do my best. Happy hunting, Detectives.“
When she’d gone, Mia slumped into a chair. „We have to stop all these late parties.“
Abe opened the big book. „What’d the surgeon say when you left your date early?“
„He was a bore. I was ready for any excuse for him to take me home.“ She cocked a brow. „And you? Once the infantry marched away last night, how was your evening?“
Long. He thought of Kristen now, of the way she’d looked last night. She’d been at her kitchen door, locking it as the last person left, prudently setting the alarm. She’d turned and just that fast the very air was charged, practically sizzling as they’d stood at opposite ends of her kitchen, staring. Then she’d simply walked into his arms as if she’d been doing so all her life. He’d kissed her. And kissed her. And God help him, he’d kissed her some more, until she was trembling and so was he, his hands clamped on her hips, wrestling with his best intentions. In the end he hadn’t dragged her against him as he’d so longed to do. He’d gently pushed her away, then turned her toward her bedroom with just a „good night.“ If she’d even hinted she wanted him to join her, he would have. He would have scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed and helped her have another… watershed moment.
But she hadn’t hinted. She’d walked away, stopping once to look back and the look in her eyes was worth more than ten watershed moments. It was trust mingled with heated want, and the combination triggered something inside him so profound… So he’d let her walk away and listened to her get ready for bed, his body still clenched and aching. She hadn’t slept until after three A.M. He knew because he’d checked on her, quietly, every half hour. He wanted to think he was checking because he’d been worried. She’d been shaken at finding Jenkins’s body in her backyard, at the implicit threat. He wanted to think that, but he knew he was hoping that she’d change her mind and ask him to stay. She’d wanted to. He could see it in her eyes. But she hadn’t and in the end she’d curled up and slept like an angel.
While he felt like anything but. He wanted her with a fierceness that left him breathless. He’d thought about it a great deal as he’d lain awake, staring at the blue-striped wallpaper from her uncomfortable sofa. She was a beautiful woman, no question of that, but he’d met other beautiful women in his life. Kristen had something more, something deeper – integrity, courage, kindness, a tender heart that she hid so well. A heart she was just now allowing to be seen. A heart that he wanted for his own.