“Maybe it was just a coincidence,” McGlade said, finally pulling into a parking spot against the curb in Violet’s townhouse subdivision.
“Maybe.” But my gut didn’t think so.
McGlade had his smart phone out. “You see pics of this Violet King chick? Smoking hot. You know I love blondes.”
He was looking at her on Google Images—Violet’s photo in an old Reuters story from 2003 when she was in pursuit of Andrew Z. Thomas during the North Carolina murders.
“You love anything with boobs,” I said.
“She’s a cop?”
“Used to be.”
McGlade opened his door as I reached for mine.
“Why’d she quit?” he asked.
“I guess we’re about to find out.”
March 31, 5:00 P.M.
After fleeing the neighborhood when Jack Daniels had spotted their tail, Donaldson had returned ten minutes later. They’d spent another five minutes circling, but there was no sign of Daniels’s car.
“You blew it, D.”
Lucy’s bitching was starting to get on his nerves. He considered the Beretta. Maybe not killing her, just a bullet somewhere non-fatal. To shut her the hell up.
“What was I supposed to do? Just sit there while they called the cops? You wanna go back to the hospital?”
“You shouldn’t have let them out of our sight. That was stupid.”
“They were going to come after us. That was a new car Jack was in. We’re riding around in a piece of shit from the nineties. They’d catch us, no problem.”
“Well, maybe you should have—”
“There! Look!”
Donaldson slammed on the brakes, and they both moaned in pain as the Monte Carlo jerked to a stop.
Lucy leaned forward in her seat, staring intently through the windshield. “I don’t see it.”
No shit. She only had one eye. Donaldson pointed. “Parked over there beside the Dumpster.” He realized he’d driven right past it. The Juke was a small car, and it had been blocked from view by a Chevy Astro the last few times they’d circled.
“So, how are we going to find which townhouse they’re in?” Lucy said. “There must be like forty of them.”
“We stake it out.”
Donaldson drove around to the other side of the lot and parked out of obvious sight. It was the perfect spot. Far enough away from Jack’s car to avoid easy detection, while allowing him and Lucy a clear view of nearly every townhouse in the complex.
“We don’t want to miss them coming out,” Donaldson said. “So Lucy?”
“What?”
“Keep your eye open.”
March 31, 4:55 P.M.
Five Minutes Earlier
I huffed and puffed my way across the parking lot toward a townhouse set off from the others, surrounded by overgrown shrubs that came halfway up the windows.
There was no name on the mail slot, just the number I’d gotten from Cynthia Mathis—813.
“Try not to say anything stupid or offensive,” I said as I rang the doorbell. “Tell you what…just don’t say anything at all. If you have an idea for a question, write it on a piece of paper and I’ll consider it.”
“Sure thing, Mom. Want to hand me my crayons so I can play quietly in the corner?”
“Like I’d trust you with crayons.”
The doorbell didn’t work, so I banged hard on the glass door, almost said “This is the police” out of habit.
I heard a television set blaring on the other side of the door. The rain had begun to pick up again, and I was overcome with a sudden craving for Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, and, incongruously, dill pickles.
I needed to write to Ben & Jerry and ask if they’d make a cookie dough pickle flavor.
“Did your stomach just say something?” McGlade asked.
“Pretend you’re still a cop. Act copish.”
The door creaked slowly open.
Even before I saw her face, I smelled the smoke and nicotine.
I smiled. “Violet King?”
I could only see a thin panel of the woman’s face through the four-inch crack between the door and the doorframe.
“Who’s asking?” Southern drawl—faint but unmistakable. The sour odor of beer mingled with the cigarette stench.
“I’m Jack Daniels. This is my partner, Harry McGlade. We’d like to ask you some questions about Andrew Z. Thomas.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”
The woman started to close the door, but stopped. She glanced at my baby bump and then back up into my eyes. Her features softened. “Tell you what…you can come in for a minute.”
Violet opened the door, and for a brief moment, the bleak, gray light from outside flooded into the front room of her townhouse. A haze of smoke lay upon everything like mist on the surface of a lake. An old-school tube television droned on from the far side of the room—a soap opera, the characters yelling at each other in a hospital room, debating whether or not to pull the plug on someone.
Violet stood less than five feet tall, but she must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. Her housedress was faded and expansive, and it took Violet more effort to waddle back across the room than it did for me to follow her inside.
“Is this her?” McGlade said from the corner of his mouth. “Or the beast that ate her?”
“Be nice, McGlade.”
The living room was small and cramped and dark. Aside from the illumination of the television, there was only one other light source—a weak lamp on a marble-topped table next to the couch. A cigarette burning in an ashtray sent blue coils up into the dusky light.
Under the eye-watering reek of new and old tobacco smoke, I detected another, more offensive odor—rot. Spoiled vegetables or meat, or possibly both.
As my eyes adjusted to the lowlight, I saw the walls were covered in baby pictures—photographs of a cute little boy. In many of them, a gorgeous, young blonde held the baby, her smile radiating love and joy. Violet’s hair was still blond, but she no longer seemed to be the woman in those pictures. I wondered if it hurt her to look at them.
Violet backed up carefully to the couch, and as she settled her bulk down onto the cushions, the frame creaked.
“Sit down.” Violet motioned to a leather love seat. She lifted a remote control off the sofa cushion and muted the soap opera. The floor at her feet was littered with bags of potato chips and Chex Mix and enough Sam Adams Cherry Wheat bottles to make me wonder if she owned stock in the company. Something crunched under my Keds—mouse droppings.
“You have a lovely home, Miss King,” McGlade said.
“What is it you two want?”
My bare arm touched the couch, layered with so much smoke residue I could practically feel the nicotine buzz seeping in through my pores. I forced a pleasant smile.
“I understand you were a police officer back in North Carolina.”
“Homicide detective. But that was a long time ago.”
“Was there a reason you left?” I asked.
“I’m on disability.”
“Something weight-related?” McGlade chimed in.
Violet gave him a dismissive glance. “Injured on the job.”
On the table, amid the garbage, was a keychain with a Toyota fob.
“Tough to make do on a disability income,” I said. “But then, you have supplemental income as well.”
I kept silent, hoping she’d fill in the details.
She said nothing.
“How do you know Andrew Z. Thomas?” I asked.
“Well, it’s no secret I was involved in an investigation eight years ago.”
“Where he was the subject?”