Ryan shook his head. “No.”
“So he wants this footage and he’s cool with it bein’ timed out? Seems weird, seein’ as he’d get perturbed, you not sendin’ enough of Ms. Owens,” Nowakowski remarked.
“Maybe he has high speed too. He didn’t complain about file crash.”
Nowakowski turned the conversation. “You hear from him the last week or so?”
“Coupla times, yeah, after the big guy and the girl started to, you know, work things out, I guess. He was real interested in that and the street footage. Emailed, wanted me to make certain I rescanned the tapes, make sure I didn’t miss anything. Her and him entering, leaving his house, when she’d chat with him at the bar, shit like that.”
“So he’s been in contact how many times in the last week?” Nowakowski pressed.
“Don’t know, four, five, didn’t hear from him a lot but started to hear from him more when the footage changed.”
“You keep those emails?”
Ryan’s head came up and a bit of belligerent swept into his face. “Yeah, they’re on my machine that you seized.”
Nowakowski, completely unperturbed, nodded. “Good. Now, who’d you hand the DVDs to?”
Belligerence gone, Ryan instantly was back to eye avoidance. “No DVDs.”
“Who’re you protectin’, Ryan?” Warren, back at the wall, entered the interrogation.
“There aren’t any DVDs,” Ryan lied.
“All right,” Nowakowski sat back, rested his elbows in his stomach and steepled his fingers, “Ryan, I want you to look at me.” Nowakowski waited patiently as Ryan plucked up the courage to lift his gaze and this took awhile. He delivered the blow when he had Ryan’s full attention. “Mr. Dennis Lowe is wanted for the murders of four people. He hacked them up with a hatchet, the first victim, his wife, was almost unidentifiable, left a finger intact, the wedding ring he put on it telling us who she was. The other three he started at the groin and hacked up to the heart, near to splitting them in two. You gotta know about one of them since you had to see February Owens call the discovery of the body into the police and you watched Lieutenant Colton question her in the bar. Now, you can sit there, Ryan, and protect whoever you’re protecting and become an accessory to multiple murders or you can tell us who you handed those DVDs.”
Ryan’s mouth was hanging open, jaw completely slack, so much Colt was surprised drool didn’t slide from his lip.
Then he snapped it shut and rolled over immediately. “Candy Sheckle.”
Nowakowski’s eyes went to Warren but Warren was already leaving the room.
Then Nowakowski looked back at Ryan. “You know Candy?” Ryan nodded. “Tell me, Ryan.”
“She’s a girl.”
“Guessin’, with the name of Candy, she would be.”
“She’s a kind of… friend.”
“Girlfriend?”
Ryan shook his head, heat hitting his face, making the pimples now nearly red. He wanted her to be, whoever Candy fucking Sheckle was, but he couldn’t have her.
“No, just a friend.”
“What kind of friend?”
“I help her out.”
Nowakowski took his elbows from his stomach, unsteepled his fingers and sat forward.
“Ryan, I got all the time in the world. The problem is, Mr. Lowe has shared with us he’s intending to kill two more people and their time is runnin’ out. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop making this so hard so we can get on with our job and, maybe, save a couple of lives.”
Ryan stared for a second then nodded. “She’s a stripper. At Girls X.” He put up his hand and offered information Nowakowski didn’t ask for but Ryan felt necessary to give. “She’s not like that. A lotta strippers, well, I don’t know anyone other than Candy, and her real name isn’t Candy, it’s Cheryl, but anyway… people think strippers are skanks but she’s not. She’s real nice. She’s got a kid and she wants him to grow up in a good neighborhood so she works real hard. She’s um… she brought this Lowe guy to me. See, I used to help her out, go to the club, give her good tips and maybe a little on the side. But then she got hooked up with Lowe and, seein’ as she’s sweet, she told me to keep my money, she’s got a boyfriend who takes care of her now and he’s a good guy, a cop. So, you know, I was gonna talk to her when you let me go, but um… I’m thinkin’ you should probably do it now.”
“We should,” Nowakowski affirmed, straight-faced and how he didn’t laugh or even crack a smile Colt would never know. “So you gave her the DVDs?”
Ryan nodded then sat forward, eye contact back, earnest now. “Candy, she’s gonna freak. She likes him, thinks he’s a good guy, thinks we’re doin’ right. And really, stripper or not, she’s nice. Seriously. Maybe you could be… um, gentle with her. Okay?”
“We’ll take care of Candy, Ryan.”
Colt looked at Sully and they both walked from the room.
“Bet you a thousand dollars Candy Sheckle’s the spittin’ image of Feb,” Sully said as they headed down the hall to the bullpen.
“I’m puttin’ a security system in today, Sul, not gonna take a foolish bet,” Colt replied and caught Warren’s eye as they got to the bullpen. “Name’s Cheryl, not Candy,” he told Warren who was on the phone.
“That would be Cheryl Sheckle,” Warren said into the phone.
“Cheryl Sheckle, shit, her parents musta hated her,” Sully muttered.
Colt stopped by his desk and leaned a hip against it. Sully stopped with him.
“Okay, Sully, breakin’ this shit down, where the fuck are we now?” Colt asked. “Months before the murders, he’s got a whole operation set up to spy on Feb and me. He’s impersonating me, insinuated himself into two lives, both of which cost him big money. When did the withdrawals start?”
“Last coupla months.”
“But he’s been workin’ this shit for six.”