Blood Red

“What? The disappearances?” There was already a backlog of cases to investigate and seven more people had vanished and been reported since midnight.

“No, Richie, the unclean love you have for Whalen. Of course the disappearances.”

“Sooner or later the town’s gonna run out of people to have disappear. But don’t worry, Danny. Our asses will be long fired before then.” He poured more syrup over his pancakes. Sugar and caffeine, those were the secrets to keeping him happy. “And Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“You go ahead and keep it up about Whalen and me. You just do that. It gets funnier every time you say it.”

Danny grinned. “Doesn’t it though?”

“Not as funny as the look on Freemont’s face last night.”

Danny nodded and broke into a bright, sunny smile. “Does my heart good to know he shit himself.”

“Boy has a bad case of the stupids going. Gonna be fun to see what O’Neill does to his sorry ass.”

“Did you want to shoot him as bad as I wanted to shoot him?”

“You kidding?” He held his index finger and his thumb a quarter inch apart. “This close to popping an eye out the back of his fucken head.”

The man in the booth behind Danny was looking green. Boyd savored the expression. It was never wise to eavesdrop on cops.

“See? That’s the problem with you. You always gotta take the hard shots. I was gonna go for the gut. I like to see pricks like him squirm.”

The excitement was getting to Danny. He had color coming back into his cheeks. “What hard shot? His eyes were bugging out.” He shrugged and cut another wedge out of his remaining pancakes. “I was waiting to see if they’d just fall out on their own, but they didn’t. I gotta tell you, I was disappointed.”

“You think he did the Lister woman?”

“Nah. He’s too sweaty right now. I bet he was figuring out whether to offer his mouth or his ass to O’Neill.”

“So I guess he’ll be using both today. Captain’s luck just got better.”

“You ever see the captain’s wife?”

“Nope.” Danny went to sip at his coffee.

Boyd waited to make sure his timing was just so. “Then you have no idea how true what you just said is. Gawd almighty, that woman could scare a dildo.”

Danny coughed coffee out of his nose as he tried to laugh. “Oh fuck, that burns . . .”

“Schmuck. The captain isn’t even married.”

“Then whose picture is that on his desk?”

“The commissioner’s wife. He has to pleasure her at least once a week or his life goes to hell.”

“You lie like a rug.”

“You don’t believe me, you go ahead and ask him.”

“Anyway. What have we got on Freemont?”

“We got DNA evidence that should get him in jail nice and easy.”

“So where is this evidence?”

“Not with us yet.”

“See? There you go getting all cocky again.”

“It ain’t cocky. That little shit is up to something. I don’t think he did his wife, but I know he did something. And did you see his face right before he blew his dinner? He was ready to run home to momma.”

“Oh, and I saw it after he tossed, too. Man, I wish I had a digital camera. He’d be all over the Internet on that one.”

“So, what happened to Michelle Lister, Danny?”

“She wasn’t abducted. Or if she was, she didn’t get taken from the car.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Automatic transmission was still in drive.”

“Good point. You know, with everything that woman has gone through, I gotta wonder if her family is really dead. This could be a kidnapping of some kind.”

“I thought the boy was confirmed dead.” Danny put a thoughtful look on his face. As far as Boyd was concerned, it didn’t fit. Danny never had to think hard.

“He is. By the same people that lost him.” More coffee to wash down the paste his pancakes had become. “It could be an inside job.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I, but I had to put it out there.”

“Okay, so the kid is still dead, at least as far as the hospital is concerned. We just don’t take them at their word.”

“Anything on the rubbers?”

Danny looked at him without any comprehension for about seven seconds and then nodded. “Oh, those rubbers. I was thinking galoshes.”

“You would.”

“Anyway, yeah, they’re a match for the one found near Veronica Miller. Circumstantial, but a nice addition.”

“Not so circumstantial if we work this all out. Nice catch yesterday.”

“Oh, I was fishing. I wanted to find something on that fucker.”

“Don’t worry. He’s ours. Guilty as sin, you ask me.”

Danny wiped his mouth and pushed his empty plate away. “Oh, he’s ours. Even if he isn’t, he’s mine.”

“I’m sensing hostility.”

“Yeah, well, creeps like him give creeps like me a bad name.”

Boyd was about to answer when his cell phone went off. He answered that instead.

“Boyd.”

“Where are you?” It was Nelson on the switchboard.

“Eating, and off duty.”

“You wish!”

“What now, Nelson?”

“We’ve had a total of nineteen missing persons reported today. You need to get down to the station now.”

“NINETEEN?” His bellow cut through the breakfast crowd and a few people dropped utensils or in one case, a glass full of orange juice. “You better fucken be kidding me, Nelson.”

“I wish I was, Boyd. Nineteen.”

Boyd pushed away his pancakes. Suddenly he had no appetite.

V