Blood Red

“Oh, yeah. You go do what you have to do. I’ll be here for a couple of hours at least.”

She nodded and took the card he offered. She nodded to the Ken doll, too. He smiled for her and suddenly had a lot more personality than she had been giving him credit for. He graduated up from cute to handsome.

It was time for class and definitely not time to think about good-looking cops, so she went on her way. She went reluctantly; she’d wanted to stay and learn more about what might have happened to Bill.

IV

Ben wasn’t really expecting any policemen at his door. The detectives introduced themselves and looked at him with expressionless faces; they asked if he could answer a few questions. He nodded and stepped out of his apartment.

“What can I do for you, Detective Boyd?”

“It’s just a few routine questions, sir. We have a missing person’s report filed on a fellow student at your school . . . Danielle Hopkins.”

“Danni’s missing?” He hadn’t really given much thought to her not being in class. Danni wasn’t exactly known for her perfect attendance. “I saw her just the other night. When was that . . . I think it was Thursday.”

“You look worried. Was she having troubles with someone?”

Looked worried? He was terrified. How was he supposed to help her without getting himself into deep trouble?

“She . . . was having troubles with a man. I helped her get them resolved, I thought.” Shit. Damn, damn, damn. This wasn’t at all what he wanted to talk about.

“Anyone you care to tell us about?” Detective Boyd was looking at him and looking hard. The big guy next to him was looking, too. Neither of them was making it easy to read what they might be thinking, and he decided that if he ever took up poker, it wouldn’t be a game he played with either of the policemen.

“Okay, here’s the thing. If I talk to you, you’re gonna get really, really pissed off with me, and then you’re going to take me to jail or worse. I’m in a dilemma here, gentlemen. I do not want to go to jail.”

“Did you commit a crime?” That was the tall one, Holdstedter. That was good, because for a minute he was beginning to think the poor guy couldn’t talk.

“Sort of. Yes, but it’s something I already fixed, so, I’m not sure.”

“Okay. Was anyone hurt during the commitment of this crime?”

“More temporarily inconvenienced and probably really, really pissed off at me.”

“So it was a joke?”

“Absolutely not.”

The two detectives looked at each other and had a completely silent conversation that involved nothing but facial expressions. “Okay, Mr. Kirby. Let’s try this again. I’m going to ask you questions and I will want answers.” Boyd held up a hand before he could protest. “If in the course of this discussion you should happen to mention a non-violent crime that does not involve dealing drugs to children or peddling little girls on the sex market, I am willing to overlook it for the present time.”

“Are you completely serious?”

“Deadly serious. I want to find Danielle Hopkins. Anything else you talk about is going to slide as long as it helps me in that process.”

He thought about that for a minute and finally nodded.

“Okay. So what if I tell you the guy I was . . . helping Danielle deal with was a cop?”

“That would depend on what the cop did, and what you did.”

“Well, okay. So here’s the thing: I was blackmailing the cop to leave Danni alone.”

“What was he doing to Danni?”

“Forced sexual encounters to avoid possible jail time.”

“Talk to me. Tell me everything.” The two detectives didn’t look neutral anymore, they looked like they wanted to find a blackmailing cop and have a sit-down chat with him.

“You don’t push on me or Danni?”

“Same conditions as before: no drugs, kids, or murder, and we have a deal.”

“None of that stuff. I was blackmailing a police officer named Brian Freemont.”

What he expected was either a nice, calm questioning session or to find himself in jail in around five minutes. What he got was two very menacing detectives who were suddenly smiling and looking at him as if he were a long-lost cousin they’d been dying to meet.

“Brian Freemont? Really?”

“Ummm . . . I’m a little scared to answer this, but yes.”

“Come on, boy, let’s take you out to lunch.” The detective looked at his watch. “This could take a while.”

Ben had a feeling his day was about to get very interesting.

He wasn’t wrong.

Ben was just starting to realize he wasn’t likely to go to jail when he saw Tom Pardue coming around the corner; Tom took one look at him and the men with him and his normal shit-eating grin dropped like a soufflé at a rap concert.

V

Well, the day had started crappy, but it was getting better and better by the second. Who should walk right into the very place he was leaving than good old Tommy Pardue? Boyd felt a smile grow across his face when the punk saw him. First the treasure-trove kid who was about to make his life easier, and now a chew toy as a bonus.