“You’re impersonating a police officer?”
“Not really. I just wanted to get some information out of this woman.”
“Will, that’s a criminal offense! Are you trying to get yourself arrested?”
He told her the whole story then, about how he’d found the overlooked address book while cleaning the bathroom at the loft. And ringing the missing man’s cell phone number only to hear Schuster’s familiar jazz combo. Then ringing it again to spot this woman, Glenda Briggs, with the phone. “I’m meeting her tonight, just for a few minutes,” he admitted. “I need to get a picture of Gutman that she might be able to identify.”
Sadie sighed in exasperation. “Look, call that detective you’re friendly with, Tim Press. Tell him the whole story. And turn in that badge before you get in real trouble!”
“Sadie – ”
“Will you do that for me?”
“I’ll call him Monday morning,” he promised.
“Not Monday. Today!”
“All right.” He went to the phone, figuring there was a better-than-even chance Press would be off duty on a Saturday morning.
But the familiar voice answered, “Detective Press, Homicide.”
“Tim, this is Will Blackstone. How are you doing?”
“Fine, Will. What can I do for you?” The words were friendly enough, but there might have been a certain coolness to his voice.
“Could I come see you this morning? It’s a long story, but I’ll make it short.”
“Come on down. I should be here till noon unless we get a call.”
He hung up and told Sadie he was on his way to meet Tim Press. She smiled and kissed him. “Now you’re being sensible.”
Will remembered Sadie’s words when he sat across the desk from Press in the squad room, but he also remembered the badge in his pocket and his scheduled meeting with Glenda Briggs that evening. He simply could not abandon the case when he might be on the verge of uncovering important information.
“What can I do for you, Will?” the detective asked.
“You know I work on cleanups at Techno-Bio. This week we’ve been cleaning up a loft following what appears to be a double homicide, only there was just one body found.”
Tim Press nodded. “Sergeant Rafferty’s case. We’ve talked about it.”
“He told me the DNA identified the second victim as a convicted felon named Samuel Gutman. I may have a lead on whether he’s dead or alive, but I need a mug shot for a witness to identify.”
Tim Press frowned. “You got any information, you should turn it over to Sergeant Rafferty.”
“I will as soon as I’m sure of it. I just need a mug shot of him.”
“Look, Will, I think you’ve got great potential if you don’t screw up.” He looked away and then back again. “Cranston tells me he fired your ass from the auxiliary for smoking pot on duty.”
“That was a terrible mistake. It’ll never happen again.”
Press sighed and went over to the next desk to rummage through a case folder. He found a mug shot and ran it through their copy machine. “You got one more chance, Will, that’s all. If you find out anything, you call me or Rafferty at once. Don’t go playing cop on your own.”
Will looked at the copy of the mug shot. It showed a white man with black hair and a beard. Without the hair, there was no telling what he looked like. “This is Gutman?”
“That’s what he looked like when he was arrested five years ago.”
Will put it in his pocket. “Thanks, Detective.” He left the squad room without mentioning the badge in his pocket. He could only hope that when Glenda Briggs saw the photo, it might trigger a memory.
That evening he arrived at Schuster’s at quarter to seven, to be certain of not missing her. The place was already filling up, with one group of diners waiting for a table. He ordered a beer and stood at the bar. By five after seven she hadn’t appeared, and he had a chilly feeling that she’d never intended to. But he had to give her a half hour, at least. It was ten after seven when he heard the ambulance siren approaching down the street. A customer came in to say that a woman had been hit by a car.
Will left his beer and hurried outside. He could see the flashing red lights in the next block, where a crowd had already gathered. He fought his way through until a police officer stopped him. “What happened here?” he asked.
“Hit-and-run driver. Step back, please.”
He caught just a glimpse of her bloodied face before the ambulance technician shook his head and pulled the sheet over it. Her lips were pulled back in a final grimace of pain, and he could see that chipped tooth on the right side. Glenda Briggs wouldn’t be meeting him tonight.
ON SUNDAY HE told Sadie about it, because there was no concealing his state of agitation over the woman’s death. “I showed her the badge, let her think I was a detective, and now she’s dead because of it.”
“Don’t be foolish, Will. Traffic accidents happen in this city every day. Have you told Detective Press about it?”
“Not yet. I need a few more days. That woman – I dreamed about her last night.”
“Maybe if I went away, you’d start dreaming of me.”
“Sadie, please – ”
“Will, you’ve got to snap out of this. You’re not a real detective, and you never will be, at the rate you’re going. Forget about that woman, turn in the badge, and get on with your life.”
Sadie was right – traffic accidents happened every day. Glenda Briggs’s death rated only a couple of paragraphs on an inside page. She’d been thirty-one years old and a medical technician, and police were seeking leads on the vehicle that killed her. Something clicked in Will’s memory. The missing Samuel Gutman had gone to prison for stealing drugs from a nursing home where he worked. Was it possible that Glenda had worked at the same place and met him there?
On Monday after work, he decided to research Gutman’s past. He couldn’t go back to Tim Press for more information without revealing his connection with the dead woman, so he went instead to the public library, winding through microfilms of five-year-old daily papers until he found the article on Gutman’s conviction. He’d been employed at the Shady Lark Nursing Home in one of the suburbs. During Tuesday’s lunch hour, Will changed into a suit and tie, telling Santos he might be a bit late getting back.
He drove out to Shady Lark, a sprawling single-story building that housed about fifty patients. He showed his badge and asked to see the administrator. After a brief wait, he was ushered into an office, where a man in a white coat was going over some spreadsheets. “I’m Frank Caster. What can I do for you, Detective?” he asked.
“I’m working on a case involving Samuel Gutman, an employee of yours who was convicted five years ago of stealing drugs.”
The man nodded. “That was before my time here, but I know the details.”
“Right now we’re investigating the death of a medical technician named Glenda Briggs. I need to know if she was ever employed here by you, as a nurse, as a technician, or in any other capacity. Especially if she was employed while Samuel Gutman was working here.”
Caster went to a file drawer and flipped through a number of folders. “Well, she wasn’t here while he was. I’ll check before and after.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Caster completed the computer search with a shake of his head. “No one named Glenda Briggs ever worked here. I even checked for any Glendas, thinking Briggs could be a married name. But we’ve had no Glendas at all here. I guess it’s not too common a name anymore.”
“Thanks for checking,” Will said, hiding his disappointment.
He always saw Sadie on Wednesdays, and against his better judgment, he again started talking about the investigation. “I thought that was over, Will. You promised me – ”
“I know. But I can’t help feeling I’m responsible for her death. I think Gutman is still alive. I think he answered the cell phone at Schuster’s when I called his number. Then he gave the phone to Glenda to get rid of it. Later, when I traced it to her and questioned her, she lied about it. She said she was staying with someone, and I’m betting that someone was Gutman. When she told him a detective had traced the phone to her, he panicked. She was on her way to meet me last Saturday when he ran her down with his car.”