Robert Crais by The Last Detective

Author:The Last Detective [Detective, The Last]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-17T22:00:00+00:00

"Yeah, sure. James, you wanna call your guys? Tell Frederico and the framers to come down."

Between the framers and the electricians, Cauley had nine men working that day. Two of the framers had trouble with English, but Cauley helped with the Spanish. Everyone cooperated when they heard that a child was missing, but no one remembered anyone out of the ordinary. The day felt half over by the time we finished even though it was not yet noon.

Starkey fired up a cigarette when we reached the Dumpster.

"Okay. Let's do the houses."

"He wouldn't have parked more than five or six houses on either side of the curve. The farther he had to walk, the bigger the risk that someone would see him."

180

"Okay. And?"

"Let's split up. I'll take the houses on the far side and you take the houses on this side. It'll be faster."

Starkey agreed. I left her with the cigarette and trotted back past our cars to the houses on the far side of the curve. An Ecuadorean housekeeper answered at the first house, but she hadn't seen anyone or anything, and wasn't able to help. No one answered at the next house, but an elderly man wearing a thin robe and slippers answered at the third. He was so frail with osteoporosis that he drooped like a dying flower. I explained about the man on the slope and asked if he had seen anyone. The old man's toothless mouth hung open. I told him that a boy was missing. He didn't answer. I slipped my card into his pocket, told him to call if he remembered something, then pulled the door closed. I spoke with another housekeeper, a young woman with three small children, then reached another house where no one was home. It was a weekday and people were working.

I thought about trying the houses farther up the street but Starkey was leaning against her Crown Vic when I got back to our cars.

I said, "You get anything?"

"C'mon, Cole, do I look like it? I've talked to so many people who haven't seen anything that I asked one broad if she ever went outside."

"People skills aren't your strong point, are they?" "Look, I've gotta call Gittamon to get some help out here. I want to run down the garbage men, the mailman, the private security cars that work this street, and anyone else who might've seen something, but you and I have taken it as far as we can. You gotta split."

"C'mon, Starkey, there's plenty to do and I can help do it. I can't walk away now."

ISI

She spoke carefully, with a soft voice. "It's scut work, Cole. You need to get some rest. I'll call you if we get something." "I can call the security companies from my house." My voice sounded desperate even to me. She shook her head. "You know that movie they make you watch before the plane takes off, when they're telling you what to do in an emergency?" My head was filled with a faraway buzz as if I were drunk and hungry at the same time.

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