“Anyone who wasn’t home when you canvassed probably wasn’t home when the snatch happened, either.”
“Well, thank you, Captain Optimism.”
Browning shrugged. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
Tower tossed another file on the discard pile. “Likes boys,” he explained.
“At this rate, we’ll be done before midnight,” Kopriva said.
“Hardly,” Tower said. “Something will come along and screw up that plan. Murphy’s law.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going to give Stephanie a call and let her know I won’t be home. Then I’m going for caffeine. You guys want some food?”
Kopriva shrugged, but Browning said sure.
“I’m not going for sandwiches, Ray, so you can forget your tuna and mustard special. It’s pizza or nothing.”
Browning feigned disappointment. “Ugh. Just get something cold to drink if you’re getting pizza.”
Tower gave him a reproachful look and held up two fingers. “Two things, huh?”
“What?”
“One, I’m going to David’s Pizza, okay? So the pizza will be delicious. And two, I’ll make sure to bring some cokes for Stef and me and some candy-ass diet for you. I’ll even bring you a straw.”
Browning removed a money clip from his pocket and peeled off a ten-dollar bill. Kopriva reached for his wallet, but Tower held up his hands. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll cover you. It’s the least we can do for exposing you to this stuff.”
“It’s better than the runaways I’ve been working,” Kopriva said.
Tower took Browning’s cash and headed for the exit door. “Try to finish a file or two before I get back,” he said on the way out.
“He’s in a good mood,” Kopriva said, a little surprised.
“That’s how he copes, I suppose,” Browning said evenly. “Besides, he’s in love. He’s living with the girl he mentioned. Stephanie. He acts differently when he’s single.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s been on the job for twelve years. Back here for three. He works sex crimes and missing persons, so we end up working together quite a bit.”
“So you psychoanalyze him?”
Browning smiled slightly. “No. I notice things. It’s a by-product of the job, you could say.”
Kopriva nodded and went back to his file. He wondered what Browning noticed about him. He briefly considered asking, but pushed the thought away. He knew the two ways people reacted to him since the shooting, and he wasn’t comfortable with either one.
Browning picked up another file and opened it. His intelligent brown eyes flitted across the page. He hummed slightly and stroked his goatee while he read.
Kopriva turned back to his own file and read on, disgusted by every word.
1907 hours
“Long goddamn day,” Captain Michael Reott muttered.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Crawford replied. “Has the Chief gone home?”
Reott nodded. “Everyone has, except for a few detectives.”
“I told them to leave by nine tonight. Otherwise, they’d work straight through.” Crawford pulled out his cigar case and offered one to the Captain.
Reott considered. The station was supposed to go to a no-smoking policy, but it wasn’t clear yet if that meant just the public areas of the building or the entire building. “What the hell,” he said and took one.
With a flourish, Crawford pulled out his Zippo lighter and flicked it open. Reott drew deeply and set the cherry at the end of the cigar. Then he sat back in his chair.
“You know those detectives will stay here through the night if you don’t walk them to their cars, don’t you?” Reott asked. “They’ll snag a few hours of sleep upstairs in the down room, but they’ll keep at it.”
Crawford smiled around his cigar. “I’m counting on it.”
Reott nodded his approval and puffed on the cigar again. “What’s the plan, then?”
“Well,” Crawford said, his voice thick with smoke, “first off, can you keep that idiot Hart out of the picture? I don’t want him having anything to do with this.”
“Easy enough,” Reott said.
“Good. Then we’ll just keep on like we are. I’ve got Giovanni at the residence in case a ransom contact comes in. Graveyard is going to relieve him. I’ve got him pulling about fourteen hours, but they’re day shift hours and easy duty. Graveyard will pull the other ten.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Tower did a door-to-door canvass of the block where the witness said it happened.”
“And?”
Crawford shook his head as he inhaled. “He got nothing. He hit the block where the kid lives, too, but same result.”
Reott coughed on his cigar, causing Crawford to smile.
“What?” The patrol captain asked.
Crawford shook his head. “Nothing, buttercup.”
“Kiss my ass,” Reott said and intentionally took a deep drag of cigar smoke, then let out a long stream of blue, blowing it in Crawford’s direction.
Crawford clapped sarcastically.
“Smart-ass,” Reott muttered. “What are you doing about the phones?”
“The phone lines are tapped and will record any activity,” Crawford told him. “I’ve got Browning and Tower running down leads and I told them to put the light duty kid on phone tips.”
“Kopriva?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Who knows?” Crawford said. “Who cares?”
Reott’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hositility?”
“He could’ve save Karl Winter, Mike.”
Reott shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
It was Crawford’s turn to shrug. “I think he could’ve. And, I don’t buy this hero crap some people are tossing around. It took Thomas Chisolm to finish his laundry for him.”
Reott was silent. He knew more than a few people felt like Crawford did.
“Anyway, he’s bright enough to handle phone tips,” Crawford said. “So we’ll keep him there.”
“What if no ransom call comes?”
“If it doesn’t come by tomorrow, Cap, it ain’t coming. Then we have to start looking at the likely possibility that this little girl is dead.”
“What’s Browning think?”
“He thinks she’s already dead.”
Reott cursed, causing Crawford to smile. “What?” Reott asked him.
“I just never heard a goat referred to in quite that way.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re not from Montana.”
Crawford allowed himself to chuckle. He puffed on his cigar for a few moments after the chuckle died out.
“How’s the media been?” Reott asked.
Crawford shrugged. “Fair, for the most part. They got the girl’s picture out on the airwaves. All the reports I saw were pretty reasonable.”
“Including that Portland transplant?”
“Shawna Matheson?”
“That’s her.” Reott shook his head. “She’d turn a cat in a tree into a hostage stand-off. I can only imagine what she’ll do with a missing kid.”
Crawford took a contemplative puff on his cigar. “I didn’t see hers. But who cares? Anything that gets people watching for the kid is a good thing. Most reporters are responsible, but a couple are — ”
“Jackals,” Reott finished.
Crawford puffed again and shrugged. Then he said, “You know graveyard patrol will keep the pressure on. They’ll stop any van moving.”
“They should. That’s their job.”
“Yeah,” said Crawford. “And they’re good at it. They’ll stop every van moving, especially if there’s a black man driving. But by tomorrow morning, you’re going to have black ministers and the Center for Racial Justice down here screaming bloody murder.”
“Screw them,” Reott said. “We’re trying to find a missing kid.”
“Some of your ‘jackals’ could jump on that particular story.”
“Screw them, too. If I need to, I’ll make an on-camera statement and explain. People will understand. If we need any more explanation than that, I’ll give an interview to that lady reporter at the newspaper. The one who actually listens and writes things up half-way fair.”
“Pam Lincoln.” Crawford pursed his lips and nodded. He agreed that she was a fair reporter, especially when it came to critical incidents. Then he said, “You know, if a ransom note shows up or it looks like the van headed to Idaho, the FBI will want in.”