cube staring at her screen saver for a half hour when her phone rang. It was José.
“We had another busy night,” he said, yawning.
“Bomb?”
“Nope. Dead body. Prostitute was found with her throat cut over on Third and Trade. If you come down to the station you can see the pictures, read the reports. Off the record, of course.”
She was out on the street two minutes after she'd hung up the phone. She figured she'd hit the station first and then head over to the Wallace Avenue address.
She couldn't pretend she wasn't aching to see her midnight visitor again.
As she walked to the precinct house, the morning sun was unmercifully bright, and she dug into her purse for her shades. When they weren't enough to cut the sting, she shielded her eyes with her hand. It was a relief to get inside the cool, dim police station.
José wasn't in his office, but she found Butch coming out of his.
He smiled at her dryly, the corners of his hazel eyes wrinkling. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
“Heard you have a new case.”
“I'm sure you have.”
“Care to comment, Detective?”
“We issued a statement this morning.”
“Which no doubt said absolutely nothing. Come on, can't you spare a few words for me?”
“Not if we're on the record.”
“How about off?”
He took a piece of gum out of his pocket and methodically unwrapped it, folding the pale slice into his mouth and biting down. She seemed to remember him smoking at some point, but hadn't seen him lighting up recently. Which probably explained all that Wrigley's.
“Off the record, O'Neal,” she prompted. “I swear.”
He nodded his head over his shoulder. “We need a closed door then.”
His office was about the size of her cubicle at the paper, but at least it had a door and a window. His furniture was not as good as hers, though. His desk was an old wooden one that looked as if it had been used as a carpenter's workbench. There were hunks out of the top, and the varnish was so scratched it absorbed the fluorescent light as if thirsty.
He tossed a file at her before sitting down. “She was found behind a bunch of trash cans. Most of her blood ended up in the sewer, but the coroner thinks he found traces of heroin in her system. She'd had sex that evening, but that's not exactly news.”
“Oh, my God, this is Mary,” Beth said, looking at a gruesome picture and sinking into a chair.
“Twenty-one years old.” Butch cursed under his breath. “What a fucking waste.”
“I know her.”
“From the station?”
“Growing up. We were in the same foster home for a little while. Afterward, I'd run into her sometimes. Usually here.”
Mary Mulcahy had been a beautiful little girl. She'd been in the home with Beth for only about a year before she'd been sent back to her birth mother. Two years later she was back in state custody after having been left alone for a week at the age of seven. She'd said she'd lived on raw flour after the rest of the food had run out.
“I'd heard you'd been in the system,” Butch said, getting thoughtful as he looked at her. “Mind if I ask why?”
“Why do you think? No parents.” She closed the file and slid it onto the desk. “Did you find a weapon?”
His eyes narrowed, but not unkindly. He seemed to be debating whether to take her lead and let the subject drop.
“Weapon?” she prompted.
“Another throwing star. Had traces of blood on it, but not hers. We also found some powdered residue in two different places, as if someone had lit off flares and put them on the ground. Hard to imagine the killer'd want to draw attention to the body, though.”
“You think what happened to Mary and the car bomb are related?”
He shrugged, a careless lift of his broad shoulders. “Maybe. But if someone was really doing a payback on Big Daddy, they'd have hit higher up the food chain than her. They'd have gone after the pimp himself.”
Beth closed her eyes, envisioning Mary as a five-year-old, a headless Barbie doll in a tattered dress tucked under her arm.
“Then again,” Butch said, “maybe this is just getting started.”
She heard his chair move and looked up as he came around the desk to her.
“You got any plans for dinner tonight?” he asked.
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. You and me.”
Hard-ass was asking her out? Again?
Beth stood, wanting to be on an equal footing with him. “Ah, yes—no, I mean, thanks, but no.”
Even if they