I remember his reaction—the same broad smile he gave me when we saw the hammerhead. Putting me at ease. Mom, on the other hand, was ready to kill Run and then drive me and his dead body to the justice of the peace.
“Whoever killed this woman knows who I am,” I say flatly.
He cocks his head. “Because of the police report?”
“No. Because he went into my truck and stole my driver’s license.”
Dad’s face turns vacant as he tries to process this. “Why?”
“I don’t know. In case I saw something. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing.”
This is hitting him hard. “But he has to know you’re a cop by now, right?”
“Probably.”
Dad looks at the loose hoodie I’m wearing. “You have your gun on you?”
“Yep.” I took it out of the lockbox in my truck, and I’ve kept it near me since I left the crime scene. I don’t feel as though I’m in immediate danger, but it seemed like the smart thing to do.
“It’s going to be fine,” I say, mostly trying to assure myself.
“Are you positive he took it?”
I nod. “Right now, a forensic tech is dusting my truck for prints. I got a ride here from a friend at the Broward Sheriff’s Office.”
“BSO? I thought this was in Palm Beach?”
“It was. There were a lot of cops there.” I shake my head. “Something weird going on. Nobody would tell me anything.”
I think that has me more worried than anything else.
“I need a favor, Dad.” This is the part that kills me. “I’m going to ask Run if he can take Jackie for a few more days. I’d like you to keep an eye on her too.”
This week is my turn, but we’ve always been pretty relaxed about it, mostly going along with what Jackie wants.
Dad’s eyes narrow as he realizes what’s been tearing me up. It’s not only that I might have a psychopath after me.
It’s that the address on my license is my daughter’s address too.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHIEF
Police Chief Katherine Roche motions me into a chair in her office, then shuts the door behind us. I can tell this is going to be serious. When she closes the door, it usually means someone’s going to get chewed out or fired.
I think I’m on safe ground in that regard. The last person she let go, Stephen Halperin, was a chronic alcoholic who refused treatment. Chief Kate, as we call her, went above and beyond to try to keep him in line, but his addiction was too severe. I also secretly suspect he had a problem taking orders from a Haitian American woman with a Queens accent.
Through the window by the door, I catch a glance of Carla Esmeralda pretending to type a report as she gives me an arched eyebrow. She knows something, but she’s not about to clue me in on anything.
Chief Kate takes her chair and stares at me for a moment. Photos of her two sons flank her from the bookshelf. Daniel is an aircraft mechanic at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood Airport, and Arnold is working on a graduate degree in international finance in New York.
Chief Kate and her husband, a retired postal worker, are rightly proud of their children, and I sometimes feel like a part of the extended Roche family when she sticks her neck out for me—even going so far as to argue before the Lauderdale Shores City Council that my position is essential, as questionable as that sometimes seems.
“So you decided to go looking for bodies in your off-duty hours?” she asks.
“Not exactly. I was trying to get some extra credit with my archaeology professor. Paleo-Indian stuff,” I reply.
“You thought about bringing doughnuts to class instead?”
“Fair point.”
“Well?” she asks after a long moment waiting for me to add details.
“Well . . . I don’t know anything else,” I reply, not sure where she wants me to take the conversation. I called her from the crime scene yesterday and told her what happened.
“Anybody come talk to you?” she asks.
It’s only nine a.m., so it seems a little odd that she’d be asking that. “No. Not yet. I expect I’ll get asked to go back up to Palm Beach and make a statement.”
“I expect,” she replies but draws the sentence out a bit, implying something.
I turn back over my shoulder. Carla is still pretending to work on her report while keeping an eye on our conversation. Something is definitely going on.
“Chief? Is there something I should know?”
“How’s that archaeology thing going?” she asks.
“Good . . .” What’s she getting at?
“Kind of like being a cop? Looking for clues, asking questions?”
“Um, yeah . . .” I sit up in my seat, paying close attention, as if someone’s going to pop out of a filing cabinet with an explanation.
“Where do archaeologists make most of their interesting finds?”
“Er, the ground?”
Chief Kate’s starting to make me question my own sanity.
“Yes, but where?”
“Trash piles. Midden heaps. That kind of thing.”
“Right,” she says eagerly. “The trash.” Her gaze flicks briefly to her plastic wastebasket.
It takes me a little longer to realize I should take a look. At first glance I don’t understand what she’s going on about, but then I see it: two empty Starbucks coffee cups.
The trash is taken out each night by Octavio, our custodian. We all get our coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts or Lester’s Diner—which means that the chief had at least two visitors before I got here . . . visitors who probably told her not to tell me why they were here. Which could mean they were anything from district attorneys to feds.
Knowing Chief Kate, she told them she’d do whatever she damned well pleased but settled for not offering up the information. Meaning, she wouldn’t lie to me if I asked.
So I ask. “Have any visitors?”
“Funny you should ask that,” she says with an eye roll. “I had two DEA agents up from Miami pay a visit. They asked a lot of questions about you.”
“And the murder?”
“Yes. Specifically, they wanted to know if you knew the woman.” She pauses for a beat, waiting for me to jump in.
“I was up all night asking that same question.” I leave out the part about keeping my gun under my pillow, worrying that every rock of my houseboat was the killer stepping on board to finish me off.
“And?”
I shrug. “Someone vaguely familiar, like a waitress you say hello to, then forget. DEA?” I add after thinking about that part. “Why is the Drug Enforcement Agency interested in the murder of a Jane Doe where there were no drugs on the scene?” I answer my own question: “Because they think it may have been drug related due to the way she was killed.” This sinks in. “So the DEA thinks this is some kind of drug hit? A hit man with a similar MO?”
“That’s the worrisome part, Sloan. They asked me about you for thirty minutes. The killer never came up.”
“Whoa.” My pulse starts to race. “They don’t think I did it?”
“I have no idea what they think other than they were suspicious about you being there at the exact time of the homicide.” Her voice trails off a bit, suggesting that she’s a little curious about that too.