Sue Ellen laughed when he told her, sitting at the file covered kitchen table, that he felt like a teenager on a study date. Instead of Mom and Dad in the next room two serious men wearing guns were watching a movie. She laughed again when he told her he was definitely going to keep his hands to himself.
“Pretty strange way to get a romance started.”
Sue Ellen was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was slightly mussed. A pair of glasses were perched atop her head. Tony didn’t know she wore glasses. There were a lot of things he didn’t know about Sue Ellen and he was a little put out that it was proving difficult to further the investigation. The romance comment was damn encouraging, though.
“I actually had a life when I was in uniform. Worked a shift, went home, went out…had a life.” Tony didn’t whine often, but this was a little frustrating.
“It wouldn’t matter with this thing. It’s my problem, remember.” They were sitting close on hard backed chairs. Sue Ellen gently scratched the back of Tony’s neck.
“What’s going on with it? Has anyone put any pressure on Garcia?”
“No one can find him.”
“I bet I could find him,” Tony growled.
“The Gang Unit knows where to look.”
“Not everywhere. I was inside, remember?”
Sue Ellen gently grabbed the hair at the back of his head and turned Tony’s face to hers. “And then what, detective?”
“I’d shoot him. The man is messing with my love life. I’ll just shoot him. Couple ‘a times.”
Sue Ellen laughed softly before she used the hand behind Tony’s head to pull him closer.
“Okay,” she said after a long lingering kiss.
“Okay what?”
“Go find him and shoot him. Quick.” She kissed him again.
“Can we get rid of those guys?” Tony motioned with his head toward the door to the living room.
“No,” Sue Ellen sighed. “I already asked. And no, I’d feel weird with them out here in the living room.”
“So would I,” Tony confessed.
“But I’m working on something.”
“What? A break out?”
Sue Ellen untangled herself and scooted the chair a few inches over. “If it works out you’ll be the first to know. Let’s uh…not make things worse right now though, okay?”
“You’re right.” He rubbed his face with both hands.
“So, tell me about your case. How’s the investigation going?”
“We were talking about it over at The Red Door when every pager in the metro went off. Truthfully, we don’t even have a good suspect yet.” Sue Ellen knew that sometimes cases just couldn’t be made. She felt bad that Tony’s first one might end up like that…an unsolved.
“There’s this connection to a trip to LA, kinda’ sorta’. One of the son’s roommates was out there when this group of women, they call themselves the ‘Go Girls’, were out there last spring.”
“Why are you looking at that?”
“There was an incident at a strip club.”
“The women were stripping?”
“No. The other way around.”
“The roommate was stripping for the women?”
“Well…no, not exactly.”
“You don’t have much is what you’re saying.”
“We got some porn,” Tony offered. It sounded like an apology.
“The roommate?”
“He’s got what you’d call a…a hum-dinger. His alibi’s real shaky, and his prints are in the system for a bust out there. They’re also in the house, but not in the kitchen.”
Sue Ellen had her prosecutor hat on now but no idea what Tony meant by a humdinger. “You can put him with the women?”
“Sort of. One of them thinks she saw him out there, but not at the club. He wasn’t one of the dancers.”
“How do you know?”
“One of the ladies took a few pictures.”
“And you’ve checked them out?” Tony nodded. Then he laughed at a thought.
“What?”
“I haven’t seen so many foot long hot dogs since the State Fair.” Sue Ellen laughed too, even though she still didn’t get the joke.
“You have a lot of work to do on this one, Tony. What does Ray think?”
“We’re going to show the six-packs to the other ladies tomorrow, as many as we can track down. See if they recognize the guy.”
“Is there any remote possibility that one of these women witnessed the murder? Think hard. It’s important,” Sue Ellen commanded.
Tony obeyed. He couldn’t possibly think of any of Deanna’s friends witnessing the stabbing. Karen Hewes told them she’d been at the house that morning and hadn’t seen anything. No witnesses…no way. “No. I don’t see it.”
“You could just show them the one picture. You aren’t probing a witness for identification. You’re trying to make a link, a better link, between this guy and the women. If they recognize him you might have something. You don’t need to use a lineup.”
“So why’s Ray so hell bent on doing it this way then?” Tony asked.
“Uncle Rayford has a blind spot. He wants his evidence to be so perfect he goes too far sometimes. That’s my guess.”
“So you wouldn’t need the lineups in court if you were prosecuting the case?”
“Tony.” Sue Ellen shook her head. “You’re a million miles from the courtroom.”
Chapter 23
That Saturday morning never did actually dawn through October clouds that were low and wet. It was like a damp gray blanket had been draped over the city. It grudgingly revealed itself, detail by detail, but by 9:30 still hadn’t satisfied the streetlights’ electric eyes. They were still on while Tony and Ray drove to Erika Hilgendorf’s house in Roseville, an old first ring suburb just north of St. Paul. She was glad to have them stop by, she’d said, anxious for them to catch her up on the investigation.
Ray didn’t tell her it was more a case of them doing the asking. Erica would figure that out pretty quickly.
Bruno greeted them at the door. Bruno, a Great Pyrenees, shaggy and snow white, outweighed the petite woman by at least twenty pounds…maybe even thirty.
“Who walks who?” Tony chuckled as Bruno grudgingly let them enter. Very protective of his mistress, his eyes never left the detectives for the entire visit. Tony made a conscious effort to avoid any fast moves.
“Oh, I walk him. He’s a big baby.” Tony nodded, thinking ‘sure you do, uh huh’. “The leash is just a prop.” Tony was about to make a joke about a saddle but Ray headed him off. He produced the picture of Sean Stuckey that Kumpula had updated and passed it over to Erika.
“Is this the guy who killed Deanna?” There was fire and anger in the small woman’s eyes. She studied the picture closely, holding it up to the front window of the living room for better light.
“No, this is just someone we’re interested in.”
“Why?” She jiggled the picture at Ray. “If you don’t think he did it then he must know something, right, like a witness or something.”
“Have you ever seen this man? Do you recognize him?”
“Recognize him? This kid?” The comment made Tony wonder again how old Erica was. The ‘Go Girls’ all had a talent, or at least a technique, for shaving years off. She gave the picture another hard look. “Nope. Never saw him before.”
Tony gave Ray a sidelong glance before he said, “It might not have been here in the Cities.” They had battled earlier about using the photo line-up. Tony had won that one. The skirmish for mentioning LA was fought to a standstill and remained unresolved.
“Tony…”
“It might have been in Los Angeles last spring. The night you all went to the uh…club.” At first Tony thought she wasn’t embarrassed by his mention of the strip joint. Her stance was still aggressive. Her posture was confident and businesslike, but Tony noticed the tops of her ears redden slightly and a pale pink tinge of color crept into her cheeks. The room was warm. No chilled breeze had crept in.