“Looks like he was in someone’s pocket.” Cloister pushed himself off the door. “Not enough to be dirty, but—”
“Enough to explain why he made it onto Hector’s shit list with the other families,” Tancredi said. “Maybe he even got paid out of a Hartley pocket. Okay, I can work with that. Are you sure you don’t want to sit in?”
He shook his head. “I’m going to try to get in touch with the other possible victims again.”
Tancredi nodded and went out to talk to Scanlon. She shook the man’s hand as he stood up, and she gestured toward the interview room. Cloister tried Luna McBride’s number first, but it was busy. Again. He left the same message as he had the last time. It probably wasn’t going to work. Leo had spent the last five years reliving his kidnapping, but from Luna’s sterling record and straight-arrow testimonials, she was dedicated to ignoring it.
He could hardly throw stones.
The absence of Bourneville’s heavy, warm body on his feet as he worked his way through the list was odd. The noise of her breathing was the usual background to his day, but they weren’t usually in here for that long or that often. She was happier down in the kennels with her favorite toy and her lunch until they could get back to work.
It wasn’t the only thing that had him on edge. He just had less justification for feeling on edge over Javi’s absence.
Five calls to the possible victims. Two of them went unanswered. One of them was picked up by the guy’s mother, who promised to pass on the message but said he’d moved out. Another was to a teenage girl who abashedly admitted she’d run away to Vegas with her best friend and ended up having to call their mom from a truck stop when they got scared.
“We were lucky,” her mother admitted when she took the phone back. “I guess you’re looking for someone who wasn’t.”
Cloister let her get back to probably reminding her daughter how lucky they’d been. He picked up her file and stretched over to add it to the pile of cleared cases. Just as he was about to let go of it, the phone rang. He jumped and sent the file skidding off the desk. It hit the floor and sprayed paper everywhere.”
“Shit.” He grabbed the phone and tucked it into his shoulder. “Deputy Witte.”
“Deputy,” Andy said. “There’s a Doctor Galloway here? She wanted to see Special Agent Merlo, but since he isn’t here….”
“I’ll be right out.” He hung up, gathered up the papers from the floor, stuffed them into a file on the desk, and headed out to the desk. Galloway stood in front of it with a padded computer bag hung crosswise over her chest and a wheeled Captain America suitcase at her feet.
“Doctor?”
She turned around and stuck out her hand for a brisk shake.
“I was looking for Special Agent Merlo,” she said. “Apparently he’s not around?”
“Not at the moment,” Cloister said. “He’ll be back shortly. Can I help?”
“Probably,” Galloway said. A wry smile crossed her face, and she shrugged. “To be honest I could have just emailed it. I suppose I just wanted to show off a little. He asked me to find a case that matched certain parameters, and I think I have.”
“You have?”
She hitched the laptop back around so she could get into it and pull out two clipped-together pieces of paper.
“I couldn’t find a ‘Hector’ with a relevant case history. But this case comes close. A toddler died of hyperthermia in a car after her mother had been picked up for trespassing and spent the day in jail. The mother killed herself a few days later from an overdose, and there was one surviving son.” She extended the paper to him. “I’m going to be away tomorrow, but if Special Agent Merlo needs to get in touch, the morgue can forward my calls.”
Cloister took the pages from her. The details stripped some of the tragedy from the sad little record, but not all. He scanned down over the names, ages, and causes of death, and he stopped sharply at the location.
“Mallard Park?” he said.
Galloway pulled the handle up on her suitcase and used her elbow to swing the laptop bag around onto her back. “Yes,” she said. “It was, I think, back before they stopped work on it.”
She tilted her suitcase toward her. “Tell Special Agent Merlo that he owes me.”
“I will. Before you go, though, who found them?”
Galloway pursed her lips and shrugged. “I believe there was a call to emergency services,” she said. “So paramedics, firefighters. Why?”
“I think there’s someone else here who’ll remember it.” He nodded to Galloway, who raised her eyebrows at him. “Thank you, Doctor. Have a good trip.”
She sniffed. “My grandfather died.”
“Sorry.”
