He shot me a quick look.“It’s my job.”
“That’s what I meant,” I said.“Although usually your victims are dead.Zachary isn’t.”
He shook his head.“They weren’t trying to kill him.If they were, they’d have made sure he was dead before they dumped him.”
“Bar brawl gone wrong?”
“Not likely,” Mendoza said.“People who brawl in bars don’t generally cover each other’s heads with sacks before they whale in.”
Perhaps not.I haven’t been in enough bar brawls to know.“What, then?”
He shrugged.“They clearly wanted to make sure he couldn’t describe them.It looks more like punishment.Or maybe interrogation.”
“What would anyone interrogate Zachary over?”
“No idea,” Mendoza said.“The Russian girl?”
Anastasia?Maybe.That’s the reason he’d been down here, in this part of town.
I took a couple of steps back and looked up and down the alley.The guy with the cigarette was still there, and watching us.“Is there anywhere around here where he might have been?Before he ended up in the alley?”
“Any number of places, I imagine,” Mendoza said.
“Let me rephrase my question.When he left last night, it was to see whether he could find a place where the girl, Anastasia, might have worked.We talked about strip clubs, but I suppose there are other possibilities, too.Is there anything like that around here?”
“Nothing I know of,” Mendoza said, “but I don’t work vice.”
“Different department?”
“Special investigations,” Mendoza said.“Narcotics, gangs, gambling, and organized prostitution.In criminal investigations, we mostly deal with homicides and missing persons.”
“Like Steven.”
“More like missing persons we don’t assume are in bed with someone other than their spouses.”
Right.“What about kidnapping and ransom notes?Who handles that?”
“In this case,” Mendoza said, “me.Usually, that’s a federal crime.The FBI takes over.But since it’s connected to the homicide I’m working on, it’s mine.”
Lucky him.“And Zachary?”
“Is mine, too,” Mendoza said, “by virtue of being connected to the homicide I’m working on.”
“So for you, does it all come back to Mrs.Grimshaw?”
He hesitated.“Not necessarily.I have a feeling it’ll turn out to come back to the girl.But I can’t be sure.”
“Did Araminta Tucker give you the impression that she’d be capable of driving to Crieve Hall to shoot her sister-in-law?”
Mendoza’s lips quirked, and a dimple made a quick appearance in one cheek.My stomach swooped.“Araminta Tucker gave me the impression that she’d be capable of pretty much anything.She propositioned me.”
That didn’t even surprise me.And not only because it was Araminta Tucker.“That probably happens to you a lot.Doesn’t it?The blonde news reporter yesterday…”
“Not in old folks’ homes,” Mendoza said.“Can we get this conversation back on track?”
I wasn’t aware that it had left the track, but if he wanted to talk about Zachary, I’d talk about Zachary.“I think we should talk to the guy down there, with the cigarette.”
“Why?”Mendoza said.
