“Trying to see into the future?” she said.
“The past,” he told her. “With cops it’s always the past.”
She nodded, as if he’d just revealed something valuable. There was a moment of silence that hung thickly in the air, then she said, “Is there anything I can help you with?” When he didn’t answer right away, she sat down in the chair across the desk from him. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, or what exactly you’re trying to figure out, but I know there’s a lot of shit going down. Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do it all by yourself.” He still didn’t respond, so she said, “If not me, then some of those guys.” She waved her hand in the direction of the cops in the main station room.
“I have two of them working on something.”
She waited but he didn’t say anything further, so she stood back up and said, “I’ll go back to my parking tickets.”
Reggie turned around, took a step toward the door, but Justin said her name out loud and she stopped.
“Ray Lockhardt,” he said.
“What about him?”
“I want you to handle the investigation.” Her eyes widened a bit. He thought she looked pleased. He’d definitely managed to surprise her.
“Um. .,” she said, “what are you going to be doing while I’m looking into only the second murder in this town in twenty-six years.” Now it was his turn to look surprised, and she said, “I do my homework.”
“Time to graduate from homework,” Justin told her. “It’s the real world now.”
“I’m ready for it,” she said.
“I know you are.”
“But you still didn’t answer my question. What are you going to be doing?”
“There are a lot of pieces to this thing. I think you’re better off not knowing what all of them are. At least for now. But you’ll be working on one piece. Gary and Tom are working on another one.”
“And you’ll be working on another one.”
“Yup.”
“And putting all the pieces together so they make a nice, coherent whole?”
“See?” he said, nodding. “You’re already putting your crack investigative skills to work.”
He told her to sit back down, then he spent a few minutes going over the details of Ray Lockhardt’s murder and pointing Reggie in several right directions. He told her to begin by looking for anyone with a registered.38 on the east end of Long Island. If that didn’t lead anywhere, find out if any registered.38s had been reported stolen. Said she should track Ray’s movements for the day he died, and to check with airport employees and pilots to find out if anyone saw anything suspicious. Told her the results from fingerprinting Ray’s office should be back momentarily and gave her the name of the officer on the Southampton force she should contact to get them. That would be enough to keep her busy for a while. Then he told her to report in at the end of every day or anytime something interesting occurred, day or night. He saw her eyes flicker when he said the word “night,” and he almost said something, something like, “Come on, sex is one thing, a murder investigation’s something else, cut the crap,” but the flicker wasn’t really that blatant and it seemed better to leave the whole thing alone. Besides, he’d felt the change in his voice when he said the same phrase. It wasn’t much of a change, he doubted she’d even heard it. But he had.
When Reggie left the office, he hesitated for just a moment, then picked up the phone and dialed.
He gave his name to the secretary who answered the phone, and she immediately put him through to her boss. When the man came on the line, Justin took a deep breath and said, “Dad?” Then he explained to his father what he needed and what he wanted and when his father said, “Okay,” Justin said, “See you Saturday.” Before he could even hang up the phone, Gary and Thomas burst into his office. They looked like little schoolkids who couldn’t wait to show the teacher they had the right answer to a tough question.
“We found him,” Gary said.
“Hutchinson Cooke,” Thomas added.
“Yeah.” This was Gary. Justin wondered if they’d actually rehearsed who would get to tell him what information. “We have his home address and the name of his commanding officer at Andrews Air Force Base.”
Thomas stepped in now. “That’s where he was based.”
“Where’s the house?” Justin asked.
“In Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s right outside of D.C.”
“And it’s up for sale,” Gary said. He couldn’t resist a slight boast. “I spoke to the Realtor.”
“Who’s selling it?” Justin wanted to know.
“Cooke’s wife.” That was Thomas. “They were married for sixteen years. Her name’s Theresa. They have two kids.”
Gary shot his fellow cop a sharp look. Justin wondered if it was Gary who was supposed to spill the news about the kids. “The oldest one’s Reysa. She’s twelve. And the younger one’s Hannah. Nine.”
“Here,” Thomas said, handing over a piece of paper. “That’s got all the info on it.”
“Thank you,” Justin said. “Good work.”
“There’s one other thing that’s weird,” Gary said. Justin could see that there’d been an internal struggle about whether or not to reveal this last chunk of info. “This guy Cooke was pulling down two paychecks. We finally found him using IRS records, that’s how come we know about it.”
Justin couldn’t help himself. “He was getting paid by a company called Midas, right?”
Both of the faces of the young cops fell nearly to the floor. Justin felt guilty. But, hell, they deserved it. They’d been just a little too eager to show off. Still, he could have been a little less show-offy himself.
“Did you get any information on Midas? I didn’t come up with a thing,” Justin said.
His ignorance on that score didn’t seem to make them feel any better. Gary looked down at his shoes and said, “No. We didn’t find nothing either. It’s weird. It’s kind of like the company doesn’t exist.”
“Well, keep working on it, would you? It might be nothing, it might be important. But see what you can find out, okay?”
They nodded, turned to go back to the main room.
“And I mean it, guys. That was good work. Thank you.”
They shrugged but were still pleased by the compliment. As soon as they were gone, Justin hunched forward and looked at his calendar for the next day, saw that other than a meeting with Leona Krill, he had a blank slate. He decided he could cancel Leona. He was sure she’d understand. So he made two quick calls. One to the travel agent at the end of Main Street, right on the pier. She booked him the round-trip flight he requested. The second call was to Leona. He got her secretary, told the woman to reschedule the next day’s meeting. When she asked for a time to reschedule, he said he’d get back to her, and hung up. He’d barely gotten his hand away from the receiver when his intercom buzzed. When he answered it, Dennis said, “Mayor Krill’s on the one-three-six-four line.” Justin nodded to himself, tapped down on the right button and said, “Leona, what can I do for you?”
“You cannot cancel your meeting with me just because you don’t feel like meeting. Not when we’ve got a murder investigation in this town. That’s what you can do for me.”
“I canceled it because of the investigation,” he said. “I have to go out of town. On business.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“Early,” he told her. “A nine A.M. plane, so I have to leave here around seven.”
“I’ll meet you at six-thirty,” she said. “I’ll even make it easy on you. We can meet at your place.” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Six-thirty tomorrow morning at your place, okay, Jay?”
“How do you like your coffee?” he said.
“Skim milk, no sugar.”
As he put the phone down, Justin sat back in his chair. He looked through his large plate glass window into the front room of the station house. Thomas had left to patrol the town. Gary was working on his computer. Reggie was putting on her coat and was on her way out. She glanced into his office on her way to the front door, saw that he was watching her. He was expecting a smile but it didn’t come. Their eyes met, but no smile. Then she was gone.