Cold Shoulder (24 page)

Rosie sighed as they turned into yet another road, Lorraine shaking her head. She simply could not remember where the place was, or which route the cab driver had taken. She knew they were close, but she didn’t want to ask directions. Instead she told Rosie to drive to Mike’s address: maybe she would recognize landmarks, and as Mike’s house was along the shore, she was confident she’d be able to direct Rosie from there.

With a screech of tyres Rosie did a U-turn and headed for the beach.

‘Keep going, we’re almost at Mike’s house now.’ They drove on until she spotted the house. She hadn’t meant Rosie to stop, especially not so close, but she jammed on the brakes hard. Lorraine felt the confidence draining from her. ‘That’s it, just across the street.’

Rosie peered over the road. ‘Very nice. Worth a few dollars.’

‘Just drive on, Rosie.’

‘But you don’t know where we’re going!’

‘Just drive, will you? I don’t want him to see me.’ As they set off, Lorraine tried to concentrate on the road ahead. But all she could think of was Mike and the girls. She closed her eyes, and then jerked forward as Rosie hit the brakes again.

‘You’re not even looking, for chrissakes! We carry on at this rate and we’ll run out of gas.’

Lorraine yanked open the door and got out of the car.

Rosie sighed heavily. ‘We lost again?’

Lorraine didn’t answer, but walked over to the railing and stood looking out to the ocean. Rosie sat in the car for a few moments, then joined Lorraine. ‘You okay?’

‘Not too good, Rosie.’

They stood side by side, like something out of a comedy duo: one so tall and slim, the other so round. A female Laurel and Hardy, but nothing was funny.

‘I’ve lost my girls, Rosie, I know that. It wouldn’t be right for me to see them. They’re happy, settled, they call her Mom. They’ve forgotten me — but, then, I wasn’t really worth remembering.’

‘Don’t say that. Everything’s worth remembering, the good and the bad, and things
are
gonna get good for you. You never know, maybe next time you see them it won’t be so bad.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so.’

Lorraine looked down into the plump, concerned face. ‘You’re the eternal optimist, aren’t you?’

‘Yep. That’s why I got myself so together.’

Lorraine slipped her arms round her, gave her a squeeze. ‘I’m glad I found you, Rosie.’

‘Me too,’ Rosie said.

Lorraine released her and turned to face the road. She remembered the cab took a right at the next junction. ‘Okay, let’s go. I think I know the way.’

‘You sure you want to do this?’

Lorraine threw up her hands in frustration. ‘Why do you think we came here? Now get in the car, I’ve been working out exactly what I want to say. I’ll draw a picture of a cufflink and you show it to the salesman. You say your husband has lost one, and you want to replace it — are you listening? Left, take a left here!’

Five miles later they pulled up in the forecourt of the building next to the vintage car showroom. Rosie got out carrying the sketch, and armed with the questions she had repeated four times to Lorraine.

Lorraine watched her disappear as she passed between the cars on display on the forecourt. When she slid up to sit on the back of her seat, she could see Rosie inside the big glass-fronted showroom, waiting at the long mahogany counter. Then she lost her as Rosie accompanied a man to the far end of the showroom. Lorraine dropped back into her seat, and lit a cigarette, never taking her eyes off the showroom entrance. Had she asked too much of Rosie? She was about to go in after her when she appeared.

‘Christ, what have you been doing? Do you know how long you were in there?’

‘Sorry, but the guy never stopped talkin’. You want the good news?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Come on, tell me.’

‘Okay. They sell the cufflinks, or they used to. They were originally part of a promotional thing, started in 1990. You know, spend hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars on a vintage car and they’ll throw in a set of cufflinks.’

‘Shit!’ Lorraine hit the dashboard with her fist. But Rosie wasn’t through. She had the number of workers, fifty-eight in all’ each of whom had been given cufflinks with their Christmas bonus. Around two hundred and fifty sets had been made up — that was the bad news. Further good news was that the first batch had been made in cheap silver, which had proved so popular that they had had a second batch made. These had been handed out last Christmas — and only to their executives, the difference being that these were made in nine carat gold. Rosie beamed. ‘There’s a board showing the top salesmen and the directors, listing their offices, so I presumed they’d be the executives, right? Eight in all.’ She fished around in her purse and dragged out a dog-eared Mickey Mouse notepad and a felt tip pen. She sucked the end and then scribbled down as many as she could remember. Lorraine watched in astonishment. Rosie chuckled as she underlined the last name: she’d remembered all eight, even their tides.

‘I always win every time! Those game shows where they show you a sort of runner thing with articles and you gotta remember each one! Now, were the links you saw gold or silver?’

Lorraine couldn’t remember. ‘You see anyone with blondish hair, rimless glasses, wide wet mouth?’

‘Nope. The guy was short and fat and looked like he got a sack of potatoes in the back of his pants…’

Lorraine grinned, and then looked over the list of names, wondering about her next move. Fifty-eight workers, all with cufflinks, eight executives all with gold ones — and a few hundred vintage car owners with God knew how many more.

‘He also said that the silver ones were crap and most of them broke after a few outings. He gave me a set for free.’

Rosie revealed the box and Lorraine snatched it from her. She opened it and knew at a glance that the man who attacked her had worn gold cufflinks. She snapped it closed. ‘Rosie, you are a fuckin’ marvel!’

Eight names, eight men with gold cufflinks. Now she would work on eliminating each one. She knew she had to be careful: if she confronted her attacker she could be in danger. At the same time she had to be sure; if she gave Rooney bum information he could arrest her, charge her, and have her locked up. She wouldn’t put it past him because he had brought up the shooting incident. It must still sit heavy on him, maybe he felt the guilt he wanted her to feel. Lorraine knew she couldn’t make any mistakes — there was too much at stake.

T
HE FOLLOWING morning Lorraine could not summon any energy and had no idea how to progress, so at eight o’clock she took herself off to Fit ’N’ Fast.

‘I just feel so tired all the time,’ she complained to Hector.

He shrugged. ‘Bound to feel that way, you’ve punished the hell out of your body for years, right? You can’t suddenly force it into feeling fit. Nothing happens overnight, it takes time and dedication.’ He agreed to make out a diet and a tough work-out programme for every other day, including weights, a strict high-carb diet, and a high-protein drink. Armed with a boxful of new vitamins, Lorraine went home.

Rosie looked over the array of cans and pills, and the charts Lorraine was pinning up. ‘I’d join you, but I’ve got a built-in resistance to all of this kind of stuff.’

Lorraine laughed. ‘Well, you’re so full of energy you don’t need it. Do you have a camera?’

‘It’s in the pawn shop — been there about seven months.’

‘Can I get it out?’

‘I dunno where the ticket is, and it’ll cost a few dollars. It’s a very expensive model.’ Rosie started sifting through her papers and eventually found the pawn ticket: there was a hundred and fifty dollars to pay. Lorraine wondered if she could buy a cheap camera instead.

‘Has it got a zoom lens?’

‘I dunno, there’s all kinds of attachments for it. I never used it so I dunno what it’s got.’

‘Okay, go get it, I’ll wait here for you. You’d better take this — it’s the last of my stash.’

Rosie departed, moaning about being used as a gofer but when Lorraine asked if she had anything better to do, she said, ‘I guess not but why do you need it?’

‘To take photographs.’

Lorraine worked through the telephone directory, matching the names on Rosie’s list. She called each one, checked if they worked at the garage, and slowly narrowed down all the wrong numbers. She was still busy when Rosie returned two hours later.

The camera was a professional fast-slide action with zoom lens. Rosie watched in fascination as Lorraine quickly checked over all the accessories, testing out the viewfinder, attaching the different lenses and grinning in triumph because it even had a laser night shutter: she could photograph at night.

‘How come you know so much about cameras?’ she asked.

‘Part of my job. On surveillance we used high-tech equipment and I went on a couple of courses—’

The phone rang. It was Rooney. ‘You out on the streets? What you doing?’

‘Gimme time, for chrissakes. Like I said, as soon as I have anything, I’ll be in touch. One thing, this Fellows guy, can I get in touch with him?’

‘Why?’

Lorraine could hear his chesty breathing down the phone. ‘Just like to talk to him. I won’t if you don’t want me to.’

‘Maybe stay away from him, okay?’ Rooney said flatly. ‘Call me. I need anything you can come up with.’

Rooney hung up. Why did she want to talk to Fellows? He remembered how intuitive she was. Perhaps she’d come across something he’d missed — or was she just ripping him off?

Bean reminded him that the second shift team were waiting for the morning’s briefing. Rooney slowly stood up. ‘Be right with you.’

Bean joined the men in the incident room. When he saw Chief Michael Berillo pass, he hoped he wasn’t going to see Rooney, as that meant keeping everyone waiting, but Rooney appeared right behind the Chief.

He snapped out orders to his men to begin spreading their inquiries to drag clubs and transvestite hang-outs. ‘I want everyone, and this is priority, to check out Norman Hastings’s contacts. Hastings is our main link to the killer because out of all the murders he’s the odd man.’

There was a loud guffaw, and when Rooney saw the funny side, he snorted. He also divulged that he now had a reliable informant working on the streets, who he hoped would soon bring in some information.

The Chief hitched up his pants, and jerked his head for Rooney to follow him to his office. ‘Who’s your informant?’

‘She’s a hooker, been arrested a number of times, she owes me a favour. She’s asking round the street girls, the pimps. Some of them won’t talk to us, so she’ll be useful.’

The Chief nodded. ‘That’s it then, is it?’

Rooney attempted to bluff his way out, saying there’d been the breakthrough with Mrs Hastings. ‘Not enough, Bill. I can’t let this continue, I’m under pressure, I’ve had the Mayor on to me, City Hall. I need an arrest, Bill. There’s seven fucking women dead.’

The desk phone rang. The Chief picked it up. He listened and scribbled on a notepad which he passed to Rooney. ‘They just got Brendan Murphy, bringing him across State today.’ He underlined the word State three times, his face darkening, and then he repeated the name ‘Bickerstaff’, and put the phone down.

‘Good news, they picked up Murphy, your number one suspect. Bad news is it’s now FBI business as they’ve had to get the documents to bring him back to us. He’s in Detroit. Looks like you’re gonna have to hand over the entire inquiry to a guy called Ed Bickerstaff, you know him?’ Rooney swore under his breath. ‘I don’t like it but I’ve no option. I’ve even been asked if you’re capable of controlling the case. I’ve gone out on a limb for you, especially as I know you’ll be retiring soon. Bill, if you don’t pull the stops out, you’ll be taking retirement even earlier than you anticipated.’

Back in his office, Rooney opened a fresh bottle of bourbon and poured himself six fingers, downing it in one gulp before he repeated the dose. Not until his third hit did he relax and begin to think straight. What possibilities had he missed, or glossed over? The FBI would go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. It pissed him off, even more so as he was sure Brendan Murphy was not their man. He rubbed his chin. This was the most complicated inquiry he had ever been on and he was nowhere. He had so little that he was almost depending on that whore Lorraine Page to come up with something. He reached for the phone to call her again. There was no reply.

Lorraine sat with Rosie in the car outside the address of Suspect One from the S and A garage, a Sydney Field. When he pulled up outside his house, Rosie got out and asked if he was a Mr Sam Field. He shook his head. She carried a clipboard. ‘I’m doing some market research, Mr Field. Do you work in computers?’

‘No.’ He was surly.

‘But you are Mr Sam Field, aren’t you?’

‘No, Sydney Field. I’m a mechanic, you got the wrong man.’ Rosie turned to leave and gave an almost imperceptible nod to Lorraine, who took two photographs. They spent the rest of the evening checking five more names listed from the vintage car garage. It had been a long, tedious afternoon and an even longer night. Six down, two more to go, and Lorraine had not yet seen the man who had attacked her.

The cost of the car rental and payment to get the camera out of hock meant she was already out of pocket, so the next morning she called Rooney. ‘I need some more money, Bill.’

‘Give me something first,’ he snapped.

‘I’m checking somethin’ out. I’ll have it by the end of the day.’

‘Drop by, I’ll give you a hundred bucks but this is out of my pocket and I’ll be out of here in forty-eight hours. FBI taking over.’

‘I’d prefer if we didn’t meet at the station.’

He swore and then agreed to see her near his Indian restaurant.

Lorraine replaced the receiver and turned, knowing Rosie had overheard.

‘What’s going on?’ Rosie asked.

‘Just trying to get us some more cash.’

Lorraine chewed her lips. ‘I’m doing this work for an old cop friend, that’s all.’

‘That why we’re taking photographs?’