I confirmed the kid was dead and then I called 911. That done, I called Kate. It went to voicemail. Damn it!
“Hey, Kate, it’s Harry. Look, I’m sorry about your birthday, but I need your help. I’m in the parking lot at Denny’s… Kate, I’m standing here staring at a dead kid… Some damn goon just shot him, right in front of me. It’s Shady’s son. So, call me… please?”
She called me back almost immediately.
“Harry, what the hell’s going on? I heard the call over the radio.” Even when Kate was mad, she was all cop first.
“It’s a long story and not a pretty one. Can you get down here? I’m betting Henry Finkle will be here any minute and you know what that means.”
Assistant Chief Henry Finkle was Kate’s immediate superior and, as far she was concerned, had an agenda all his own. He wanted her in his bed.
“Hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”
I was right about Finkle. He turned up a few minutes before Kate and chomping at the bit, hoping to find something he could hang me with, but it wasn’t going to happen, not this time.
“Starke,” he snapped. “What the hell’s going on? You’re not off the force a month and you turn up at the scene of a homicide. Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m afraid not. I’m a witness.”
“Aw, don’t tell me you shot this kid.”
Why would you even think that, Henry?
“Hell no, I didn’t shoot him. You know better than that. The guy who did was a big ugly goon. Six-seven, bald, huge belly. I took a punch from him at the launderette, Suds and Duds. The dead kid is Shady Tree’s son.”
Finkle scratched his head and looked at me in disbelief. “Shady Tree? You’re kidding, right? How do you know he was Shady’s kid?”
“He told me, for Pete’s sake. I was following a lead, a kidnapping and…”
“You what? You were following a lead? You can’t do that. You’re not a cop anymore. Back off and report it like any other citizen.”
“He did. He reported it to me.” Kate had a way of showing up just at the right time. “I asked him to look into it further. Not as a cop, but as a private investigator.”
Finkle looked back and forth at us. “Phhht! A private investigator? Now I’ve heard it all… When the hell did that happen? Never mind, forget it, I don’t want to know. I’ll have someone take your statement, then you get the hell out of here and stay the hell out of my way. Private investigator my ass… You got papers for that?”
“Working on it, Henry,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers.
He shook his head, exasperated, waved a hand in the air as if he was circling the wagons, and turned away yelling. “Get forensics over here before the rain washes away all the evidence!”
The rain had started coming down again, hard. Kate and I ducked under a doorway and some newbie cop joined us, said he was supposed to take my statement. I told him okay and looked at him, waiting. He just stood there, looking uncomfortable. It turned out it was his first time. I had to feed it to him like a two-year-old. Kate was amused, but not me. It was a sad end to a really bad night.
The statement took at least an hour—okay maybe not an hour… fifteen minutes, it just seemed that long—and then the rookie shambled back to Finkle who glared at me the entire time he was being briefed.
“Come on, Harry,” Kate said. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk. I need to know what the hell you’ve been doing.”
She followed me to the IHOP on Brainerd Road. It was late and, other than Budd’s just across the street, it was the only place still open. We grabbed a booth in the back near the kitchen. The food actually smelled appetizing, and we browsed the menu while the waitress poured the coffee.
“Thank you,” Kate smiled as the waitress huffed and turned away. “You’ve been busy tonight,” she said to me, her eyes on the creamer as she dumped it into the cup and stirred the swirls with a spoon.
“Just a little… Hey, I really am sorry… your birthday.”
“So you had to kill a kid to make it up to me?” She smirked and added a big spoonful of sugar to her cup.
“Don’t joke about it, Kate. You know I didn’t kill that kid.”
Kate smiled and nodded. “That I do, so don’t just sit there with that stupid look on your face. Tell me what happened.”
We both ordered breakfast—eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and a short stack—and I told Kate about Phoebe, the mouthless man at the Sorbonne and the van, and how I thought he’d snatched her. Then I pulled out the napkin. Her eyes lit up when I handed it to her and she smiled a wry smile.
“You recognize it?”
“Maybe… It’s kind of rough, the drawing, but it looks like the sign at the Rose Café on Third.”
I frowned. “The Rose Café.” I shook my head. “I don’t know it. Should I?”
“Not sure. Vice has been watching the place for a while, but so far nothing, at least that I know of.”
“Who owns it, do you know?” I asked.
“No, but it should be easy enough to find out. Are you thinking it might have something to do with your kidnapping?”
“I’m not sure it’s a kidnapping. Turn it over.”
“Time to come home…” she said quietly. “So the kid’s a runaway, then?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, but…”
“But you’ve got one of those crazy gut feelings again, right?”
“Well yeah, but it’s not just that. It’s also who she is… Where’s home, and who wants her? Not her dad, that’s for sure. You know, that kid told me Phoebe’s father sold her to… hell, I don’t know, not yet, but I will, for protection while he’s inside. If he did, then she’s in big trouble: forced prostitution. The dead kid—his name is Stitch—said something about an army. I guess he was talking about some sort of gang.”
“Trafficking,” she said, looking up at me over the rim of her cup. “I’m not surprised. Vice has been all over that problem for a couple of years. Nice, just what we needed around here. Did you talk to August like I suggested?”
“No, but I will. Was he involved in the Marsh case? He never mentioned it.”
“I don’t think so, but he’s into that world. I hear the feds are about to make a move on Bernie Madoff; same deal, Ponzi scheme, though on a much bigger scale than Marsh.”
“Yeah, I heard about Madoff,” I said. “Who hasn’t? I’ll talk to August first chance I get. In the meantime, I need to find the girl.”
She nodded. “So what’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one, but she drew that thing on the napkin for a reason. I guess I’ll start with that. I’ll go by the Rose Café in the morning and check it out.”
“It’s already morning, Harry.”
The waitress came by, refilled our cups and took away our plates.
“So, how’s the new partner?” I asked.
Kate shifted in her chair and gave me a sour look. I knew that look well. It was the face she made whenever she disapproved of something. Glad this time it was somebody else besides me.
“That good, huh?”
“No, he’s that bad. Look, it’s my birthday. Can we talk about something a little lighter?”
Almost as if she was listening in, the waitress came to the table with a piece of apple pie topped with a glowing candle. I’d managed to slip her a note along with a twenty when she took the plates, saying it was Kate’s birthday and asking her to do something nice.
The waitress, singing her heart out—off-key, God bless her—set the plate of pie in front of Kate. She cocked her head, gifted me with a sideways glance, took in a breath, and gently blew out the candle.
“Okay, you’re forgiven,” she whispered. “Sorry I was a bitch. I thought you forgot my birthday. I didn’t know you’d been dealing with this crap all night.”
I didn’t have the guts to tell her I forgot.
“Hurry up and finish your pie. We can go back to your place and I’ll give you your present.”
She knew exactly what that meant and downed the apple pie with just a couple of spoonfuls. Less than thirty minutes later we were in her apartment and everything was right with the world… for a little while at least.
I’d be some kind of a dope if I ever let this one go, I thought as I lay back and closed my eyes.