can check all my records. I’m clean as a whistle.”
“No, that’s not why we’re here. We understand that Roger Duncan brought one of his foster kids in recently.”
Bigelow looked blankly at them for a moment. “Oh, you mean the little Mexican boy?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, he did. Nice kid. He likes cars. Hell, who wouldn’t like a Mercedes in the driveway?” He stopped and looked suspiciously at them. “Why are you asking about the boy? Nothing happened to him, did it?”
“You haven’t heard?” said Pine.
“What?”
“Something did happen to him,” said Wallis.
“What?”
“Someone murdered him.”
A visibly distraught Bigelow slowly rose from behind his desk. “Holy Lord. Sweet Jesus. That cute little boy? Who the hell?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Pine. “Did you talk to him when he was here?”
“Yeah, Roger brought him in to see me. I’ve got six grandkids and we babysit all the time. He was a nice boy. Spoke English real good. You could tell that he and Roger had developed a nice relationship, kidding around and stuff.”
“Was he here long?”
“I saw him for about ten minutes. Roger had to step out to deal with something. I sort of described what my job was here, but he wasn’t interested in that.” He grinned resignedly. “Too boring to hold a kid’s attention. He was more interested in sitting in the cars and pretend driving ’em than hearing about how you buy them. Who can blame him? I’d rather be doing that, too. I did give him a little metal replica of a Mercedes race car. We get them for promotion purposes. Had one in my drawer. You’d think I gave the kid a million bucks.”
“Roger mentioned that the dealership works on cars other than Mercedes?” said Pine.
“We do, usually for Mercedes customers who have other cars.”
“Like exotic cars?”
“Yeah. Exactly. Hard to find qualified folks to work on them around here. Have to go to Atlanta. So we save them a trip. Our mechanics are top-notch. Certified on lots of different types of makes and models.”
“Roger said he had worked on a Lamborghini Veneno?” said Laredo.
“Yeah. That would be Mr. Driscoll. He has one. Only man I know who does around here. He made a ton of money in commercial real estate development. And he has some business with the folks at Fort Benning, too.”
“Any Pagani owners?” asked Laredo.
He shook his head. “No, we’ve never had a Pagani in here. I’ve never even seen one for real.”
“Know of any place that sells them around here?” asked Pine.
“There’s a dealership in Atlanta that sells Ferraris and Maseratis. They might sell Paganis. They’re all Italian cars after all.”
Pine said, “Did you ever sell a car to a Jack Lineberry? Or did he ever have any vehicle serviced here?”
Wallis shot Pine a look but remained silent.
Laredo just watched her.
“Lineberry? Don’t ring no bells, either. But let me check. I can’t remember everybody.”
He sat down at his desk and started clicking on his computer. “Nope. Never sold a car to anybody by that name.”
“How about service on a car?”
Bigelow hit some more keys and then shook his head. “No, nothing.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Who do you think killed the boy?” asked Bigelow.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Hope you catch the bastard.”
“So do we,” replied Pine.
Wallis’s phone buzzed. He answered it and moved over to a corner of the room while he spoke.
When he was done he came back over to them.
“We got a lead.”
“What?” asked Pine.
“Some kid saw a man talking to Frankie on the way to the bus stop the day he disappeared. And the kid thinks the man might have slipped Frankie a note in an envelope along with some cash.”
Chapter 55
SARAH TOOMEY was around ten and looked terrified sitting next to her grim parents. She was all dark pigtails, freckles, big eyes, and gapped teeth, and she wore a pair of faded denim overalls with a white T-shirt underneath, and pink Crocs.
Pine, Laredo, and Wallis were perched in chairs across from them.
“Sarah, we just want you to tell us as much as you can remember about seeing Frankie with the man the other day, okay, sweetie?” said Pine.
She had leaned forward in her chair in the small living room so that she was eye to eye with the child.
In a small, shaky voice Sarah said, “Okay, I’ll try really hard.”
“I know you will. Now, did you know Frankie well?”
“Pretty well. I liked him. We were in some of the same classes. And we had the same homeroom. He was funny. He liked to