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“You know what they say, don’t monkey with someone else’s monkey,” Temeke said, backing out of Hackett’s office.
“We can’t hold a suspect! Not when there’s no proof. And before you go,” Hackett said, lifting a hand and peering over his glasses. “Suzi Cornwell has accepted my offer. She’ll be joining us in two weeks.”
Temeke didn’t hesitate. “Corpses always smell better in the winter, sir.”
It wasn’t the first time Malin had hovered in the corridor using Temeke as a human shield, coat on and arms pressed against her body. Hackett was hard to read and she couldn’t decide if he processed information at a slower rate or if he was simply a nitpicker.
“Good, then you can take her to Jack’s for a celebratory meal.”
A roar of protest from Malin’s stomach ‒ the food at the local drive-thru was notoriously rich in green chile.
“I’m not sure Jack In The Crack is quite her thing, sir.”
“Then use your imagination, Temeke. And listen. I don’t want any more girls turning up dead, do you hear?”
“Right, sir. But if this is a serial killer, then it’s quite likely to happen again.”
Hackett rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Take one of the new cars if that’ll speed things up a bit.”
A heart-thudding pause while Temeke seemed to be mulling the offer over. Knowing his suspicious nature, he was likely waiting for the blade of the guillotine to come down and Malin wondered if the car was offered in the same way a prison governor would break bad news to a condemned man.
“We have a car, sir. It goes... what? Sixty? When the wind’s behind us.”
Hackett was standing now. “Solve stats―”
“Are very important, sir. I wouldn’t dream of taking the glory away from DCPD. But should things go wrong no doubt we’ll get the blame and you’ll cop the praise. Daft old world we live in.”
Malin felt the electric tension in the air as Temeke closed Hackett’s door. She followed him downstairs to the lobby.
“I know you’re fed up with Detective Cornwell but you can’t talk about her like that, sir.”
“That sneaky cow was trying to undermine you, Marl. She thought you were incompetent letting Adel go like that.”
A prickle of annoyance and Malin felt her voice slide up a few notes. “She said that?”
“Anyway, they don’t want us on their side of town where we don’t belong. So I thought you and I would do a little catch-up in the Fat Mule on 4th, because there’s a waitress who’d like a word. On our side of town.”
They pulled into the restaurant parking lot where a few of the Outlaw clan were chewing tobacco and sitting on bikes near the adobe wall.
“What’s her name?” Malin opened a gate covered in flakey blue paint and made for the front desk.
“Melody Lane. Said she saw something hokey. Mentioned a young guy who comes in sometimes, sits by the window and talks to himself.”
Temeke asked for Melody at the front desk and they were led to an orange booth at the back of the restaurant. A woman sat drinking Coke through a straw, small and bent with a smoky rasp to her voice. Malin estimated late fifties, early sixties, blonde hair cascading down from a badly tied bun and cheeks powdered with makeup.
“We want to thank you for calling,” Temeke said, shuffling next to Malin on the bench.
“After I saw this,” Melody said, hand patting the front page of the Duke City Journal where the composite sketch was the lead article. “I knew it was him. He always sits over there. Black hair. Shifty-like.”
Malin turned to where Melody pointed, saw a booth about fifteen feet away. It was a clear shot to the cash register and the coffee station.
“Shifty?” Malin asked. The stench of sweat and cigarette smoke was stronger now.
“Kept looking around like he was hiding from it all. Didn’t look like he was all there, arguing with himself. Tweaking more like. Two bikers were watching him real hard, that’s what got my attention.”
Malin would bet money the guy wasn’t scoping the place to see who he could pick up and it wasn’t a drug deal. They didn’t go down in places like this. The Fat Mule was a DEA preferred hangout at lunchtime.
“Any CCTV?”
“Nah. You’ve only got my word.”
“You live around here?” Temeke asked.
“I live with my old man, Joe. Only see him once every two months now.” Melody’s eyes took on a hard stare, like she knew she wasn’t the only chick he had. “I guess that’s how it is when you’re an Outlaw, always on the road.”
Malin suspected Joe wasn’t on the road, probably shacked up with his bike in an old Winnebago behind the Walmart on Southern. Anything to get away from it all.
“Clothes, birthmark, tattoo?”
Melody shook her head slowly. “Kid had black hair and make-up. Course they all wear make-up now. I only said a few words, but I could see he was all knotted up inside. I don’t know why they torture themselves. It’s so much easier these days.”
It was the second time Malin heard the word kid and she hung on to that image in her head. Junkyard Charlie had also alluded to the hair and that’s why the young man caught Melody’s eye.
There was the overnight bag Paddy had given Adel, the clothes, the wigs. That train of thought unnerved Malin and her mind lingered on it all.
“How many times has he been here?” she asked.
Melody looked up at the ceiling and closed one eye. “Five, six times. Always on his own. Stays as long as it takes to drink a cup of coffee.”
“Does he talk to anyone?”
“Only me. The good news is he usually comes in twice a week. Bad news is he hasn’t been here this week.”
“Think he might be staying near here?”
“Hard to say. Come to think of it he always leaves on foot.”
Malin shot Temeke a look, saw the faint tremor of an eyebrow. She knew what he was thinking, that these sightings weren’t accidental, that the killer was getting restless and the rising publicity was making him more so. He was indulging himself with a fake identity for a time, but it would be over soon enough.
“Did you get a name?” Malin gave a little smile.
“Nah. This one’s closed off, like there’s nothing behind the eyes. But he did leave something on the bench.”
Melody pulled a flyer from the inside of her jacket. Photographs of tractors and hay rides and the words Corrales Spring Arts & Crafts Fair, Saturday, March 18.
Four days’ time.
“Well, you can’t say sir or ma’am these days without offending someone,” Melody rasped. “So I don’t say it all. But I ain’t no bad judge of character, hon, not after thirty years working in a place like this. That was no man. But then, of course, you already knew that.”
