Patti knew where the detectives drank their whiskey. She’d accrued this knowledge while working with hard drinkers at theTimeswho often ended their evenings propped up against sticky bars, cajoling off-duty officers into revealing their leads.
Elsie assesses the room. There are green glass lamps hanging low on chains from the ceiling. Out-of-the-way booths are cushioned with battered mustard-colored leather. Men in loose ties take bleary shots at a pool table.
There’s a song on the jukebox, something Elsie thinks she has heard on the radio before—a man’s voice quavering with false emotion—but she doesn’t follow popular music. The air is thick with smoke and burned grease from the kitchen.
“Do you see them?”
Patti scans the booths. Men recline, shoulders claiming the backs of seats, arms stretched wide, French fries decorating silver platters. Patti lifts her chin, and Elsie sees two gray-haired men hunched over a table, deep in conversation.
“What are we going to say?” Elsie feels slightly alarmed that they haven’t rehearsed their roles, haven’t worked out how they are going to play this. She and Patti know the grisly details of the killings. They also know the police received a note purportedly from the killer, scrawled on a Lucky Charms box. Cornwell had gifted the details to Paul Hunter, quid pro quo for running a story about an awards ceremony Cornwell was being honored at. Elsie had overheard the phone conversation while she was filing papers in Hunter’s office. And now she and Patti have nailed down a suspect. But she’s not quite sure how they’re going to approach this conversation.
Patti doesn’t seem fazed. “We’ve got the evidence right here.” She taps her bag. “We don’t need lines.”
Patti leads the way, snaking past waitresses carrying shrimp and burgers aloft, waists nipped in, hair done nice, just how their customers like it. Patti draws attention as she moves, with that wild hair, that lackadaisical way; there’s something masculine and intoxicating about her. Eventually they reach the back table, and Elsie realizes the detectives are hunched over not because they’re conversing but because they are busy dissecting limbs. A lobster gawps with beady black eyes from the table, its shell being slowly disassembled with silver crackers. Bottles of beer stand together at the officers’ elbows, condensation dripping from the glass.
Patti heaves an audible sigh and tilts her head, waiting.
“Two more,” one of them barks without sparing her and Elsie a glance.
“We’re not here to serve you beer, Roger,” Patti deadpans.
The man glances up and his eyebrows rise in recognition. He has thetype of weathered, handsome face you might expect to see on a poster for a Western movie. His harsh blue eyes make his hair look argent.
“We’re here to find out why you’re not doing your job.” Patti flashes a sarcastic smile, then slides next to him in the booth.
The officer opposite spits a triangle of orange lobster shell into his palm. That must be Detective Bale, making the guy with the icicle eyes Detective Roger Greaves.
“Bale,” Greaves murmurs reluctantly, “this is Patti Fowler from theTimes.”
“I’m at theSignalnow, actually.” Patti gestures at Elsie to take a seat. “This is my colleague Elsie Moss. We just wanted to ask you gentlemen a couple of questions.
“Nah.” Bale bunches a napkin and tosses it at the tabletop. “We’re not talking to the press tonight.”
“Are you planning on talking to the press at all about the recent murders in the area?” Patti asks.
“Look, let me stop you there.” Bale holds up a large palm. “If you’re trying toscoopus on the Berryview girl, we’re not playing this game again.”
Elsie frowns. Berryview? None of the murders so far have taken place in Berryview.
“Because this is how it goes, okay?” He cocks his head in a way that men do only when they’re talking to women they feel are beneath them. “Girl goes missing, people callthe cops—not some reporter.”
“Berryview,” Patti repeats, not missing a beat. “Nice area. What are you going to do to make sure people are safe there?”
Elsie is astonished by the woman’s bravado, how she doesn’t worry that she shouldn’t say these things to men, let alone men in uniform. It’s kind of infectious.
“Just leave it to us, okay?” Bale draws his fingers down his mustache, eyes Patti, then Elsie, takes a swig of his beer.
“Will you be calling a conference before you arrest Sean Wilson?” Elsie finds herself asking, emboldened by Patti’s confidence. It makes her head feel dizzy.
She clocks the detectives sharing a glance.
“I’m sure you’ll appreciate we’re not obliged to share details of open cases with members of the public,” Greaves answers calmly. “That includes the press.”
“You are planning on arresting Sean Wilson, though.” Patti says it as a statement.
Greaves looks at her for a second too long and Elsie realizes, with a sting of surprise, that they don’t know about Sean Wilson. She reaches into her bag and pulls out the two facsimile copies of the photographs. She pushes the lobster plate to the side, lays the sheets flat on the table.
The detectives study the images. Elsie searches for a change in their expressions, a widening of the eyes, a softening of muscles, but they are not giving anything away.
