hard time believing the story wouldn’t have been big news, at least for a day or two. I’ll start checking the newspaper’s archives.”
“You can do it on the way to Bonnie Christiansen’s house.” He rose, shrugged into his jacket. “I just got off the phone with her. They’ve found the picture taken of her husband with his big fish. She says there’s another man in the photo with him.”
Nate and Risa stared at the picture in the cheap plastic frame. The glass was cracked. The fish Christiansen was holding was indeed impressive, if one cared about things like that. But it was the man standing in the background, half in and half out of the picture that captured his attention.
It depicted the same person speaking in that video segment in the tape found at Christiansen’s crime scene. The one they’d called Johnny.
“The kids never did find it when they were putting the pictures together for the service,” Bonnie was saying. “I ran across it when I was hunting down an extra pen to write thank yous with. Found it stuffed in one of the desk drawers.” She nodded to a small desk tucked into the corner of the room. “I remember now, the picture had gotten knocked off the table and broke. I put it away meaning to get a new frame sometime and forgot all about it.”
“Would you mind if we took it with us?” At the woman’s alarmed look, Nate assured her, “You’ll get it back. I’d see to that.”
“I suppose that’s okay,” she said slowly. “If you’re sure I’ll get it back.”
“You have our word,” Risa said as they walked to the door. “And thank you again for calling us about this.”
She waited until they were down the steps at least before clutching at Nate’s arm urgently. “Okay, that’s one coincidence erased. The Johnny in the video and Christansen’s poker buddy are one and the same.”
“What do you want to bet that the bar the group met in to play poker was Tory’s? At least until it was destroyed by fire.”
“If that’s what they were really doing,” she added. She pulled open the door and slid into the front seat of the vehicle. Her jacket gaped as she went in search of the ends of the seat belt, and he got a better view of the weapon she was carrying. He was reminded of the nerves she’d worn when she’d first arrived at the station house today. Nerves that had gradually subsided as the day progressed.
He waited until he was buckled in the vehicle and had started it. “What do you mean ‘if ’? You don’t think they were playing poker together?”
“I don’t think poker gets you killed,” she said. “At least not the way I’ve always played it. Let’s assume that Bonnie was right when she said the group was all cops. And let’s take it a step further and assume they used to meet at Tory’s. Who was Johnny referring to when he made the racist remark to someone named Lamont? A bartender maybe?”
“If we knew, and if we could track him, maybe he could give us the answers we need. In the meantime, I’m going to see what we can do about matching the photo of Johnny to personnel records for officers on the force.”
“And hope that Johnny isn’t a former officer.”
He inclined his head. The idea might not lead anywhere, especially if Bonnie’s memory turned out to be faulty. But the commonality of the man named Johnny was too good to pass up. First he’d been seen in the video taken at Tory’s, in the same shot with a much younger Roland Parker. Then he’d appeared in a photo with the third victim, Patrick Christiansen. They’d been trying every way possible to find links between the victims.
The stranger called Johnny was the only real link they’d come across.
Nate was halfway across town when his cell rang again. He checked the ID screen. It was Eduardo Morales.
“Captain.” Traffic had slowed to a near stop, snarling ahead for what appeared to be miles. And it didn’t look like there was going to be a chance to turn onto a side street anytime soon. “What have you got?”
“I just took a courtesy call from the Montgomery County Sheriff. They had a call early this morning about a fire in a rural area over there.”
Startled, it took a moment for Nate to answer. Each of the crime scenes had been solidly within the city limits. He even