Lieutenant Nicholson stared a hole through me, as if the answer to some question was hidden inside my skull. “Do you make a habit of reading the newspaper cover to cover . . .” He paused to read my ID card. “Nearly, is it?” The corner of his lip turned up, like he was amused. Like I was a joke.
I crossed my legs, knees tight together, feeling exposed. “No.”
“Just the personals, then?” He cocked a silvering eyebrow.
“No.” I jammed my fists into the pockets of my hoodie.
“I thought all you kids were into the online dating thing. I thought only old farts like me still read the newspaper.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “Why were you reading the Missed Connections, Nearly?”
Heat crawled up my neck and my head began to pound. The metal chair legs scraped as I stood up. I’d come voluntarily. I could leave on my own terms as well. If he slapped me with a truancy report, I’d find a way to deal with it. I threw my pack over my shoulder. “I found the ads by accident. I was only trying to help.”
I stepped toward the door, but the lieutenant’s meaty hand beat mine to the knob. He handed me a card, his face softening. He pinched the card. “Look,” he said, waiting for me to meet his eyes before letting me take it. “If you think of anything else you think may be important, call me at this number. I want to help you.”
For a second, I thought maybe he did. That maybe I’d done the right thing by coming. I reached for the card, letting our fingertips brush, then yanked it from his hands.
He didn’t believe me. Not at all. And his distrust clung to me like smoke.
I pocketed the card without looking at it, and trained my eyes on the door. He stepped aside, but his suspicion held fast, all the way to the exit.
My relief fizzled as soon as I realized I’d left my school ID behind. I backtracked through the maze of desks and offices, retracing my steps.
The narrow hall was lined with identical doors under cold fluorescents. Police escorted disheveled prostitutes and gang-bangers up and down the hall. I kept my head down and walked like I had a clue where I was going. I couldn’t remember which door I’d come from, so I peeked in each one. Some were shut.
Laughter echoed, becoming louder as I approached an open door.
“I don’t see much money on the table.” A man’s voice— not Nicholson’s.
“I got my money on my man, the Game Boy.”
“How much?”
I paused in front of a room identical to the one I’d been in. Peeking my head around the opening, I couldn’t tell who was speaking. A group of four uniformed officers stood on either side of the metal table with their backs to me. My ID wasn’t on it. Instead, the bright sides of an un-solved Rubik’s cube sat in the center, surrounded by small bills. Oleksa Petrenko slouched in a metal chair. His steel-gray eyes flickered between the gaps in the blue uniforms, finding mine.
“I say no more without my attorney,” he said in his brusque Ukrainian accent. The laughter in the room fell silent and four sets of eyes turned to me. I jumped when the door slammed shut.
Walking faster, I checked the next two rooms. At least I didn’t have to worry about Oleksa spreading rumors. He didn’t talk to anyone, as far as I knew. And obviously, whatever crime he’d committed, including hustling police officers out of their donut money, was far worse than any reason I had for coming in on my own.
I stopped just outside the next door. Lieutenant Nicholson grumbled in a low voice.
“Emily Reinnert’s father sits on the city council. He’s been all over me for answers and we’ve got nothing. I want a plainclothes at the play at West River High tonight.” I heard the taptap-tap of plastic against the metal tabletop. My ID card. “And I want to keep an eye on this Boswell girl. She knows more than she’s letting on. Who do we have inside West River?”
A woman answered. “This is everyone we’ve got working inside the local high schools.” A heavy thud, like a stack of files hitting the surface of the table. A quiet rustling.
“No, I don’t want a cop,” Nicholson growled. “I need someone who can get in close to the girl without giving Internal Affairs one more reason to crawl up my ass.”
“We’ve got a C.I.—Whelan—at West River,” she said. “Sprung him from juvenile about three weeks ago.”
A brief silence and a shuffling of papers.
“Wasn’t the Whelan kid involved in the shooting at North Hampton?” Nicholson asked.
“We cut him a deal. He stays in school and keeps his nose clean, and in exchange we registered him as a confidential informant. His file says he’s got an apartment in Huntington. The kid’s parole officer says he’s back in school as of this week. She’s got him checking in daily by phone. Meets with him on Saturdays.”
Nicholson grunted. “And what do we get out of the arrangement, aside from charitable warm fuzzy feelings and another paycheck against my budget?”
“He agreed to help us bust Lonny Johnson.”
I held my breath. More papers shuffled in the silence.
“Toss him a bone. Tell him to get in tight with this Boswell girl and we’ll expunge the last assault and battery charge from his record. And make sure he stays in line.”
“We met with him this morning and debriefed him on the Reinnert case. He’s cocky, but he doesn’t seem like such a bad kid. Asked him to keep his eyes open in case he hears anything. Lonny’s mostly distributing speed and coke, but he’ll try to get us something on the local roofie dealers. The lab found ketamine residue in Emily Reinnert’s water bottle.”
Tap-tap-tap . . .
“I want more than that. I want Whelan to get me everything he can on Nearly Boswell.”
I abandoned my ID and crept back from the door.
9
He wasn’t hard to spot. The man in the navy suit came out of the auditorium at least a dozen times during the performance, his jacket buttons straining over something bulky near his waist. He walked to the water fountain without looking at it, eyes roving the hall in both directions as he drank. A thin comb-over flopped in an arc from his head, flirting with the fountain spray when he leaned over. When he stood up, he checked his watch and yawned.
Nicholson had sent one pathetic verge-of-retirement cop, but I guess that’s all my skinny prank theory was worth. I’d been observing his unimpressive stakeout for almost an hour from the courtyard. It was the perfect vantage point, dark enough to conceal me, with panoramic views of the halls in each direction. Nicholson was suspicious of me, and I wouldn’t add fuel to his fire by flaunting the fact that I was here.
The cop disappeared into the red hues of the theater and I crept back into the hall just as the auditorium doors pulled slowly closed. I withdrew the ad from my pocket. The clue suggested two possible scenarios.