“Wherever you want to go,” Nikki assured her.
They started walking.
There was no way out of the fact that a lot of investigative work was time-consuming and tedious. Such had been Joe’s day.
But by the time he was due to meet with Brad, he had discovered several new links. For one thing, he now knew that Genevieve had almost certainly known Hank Smith well.
Furthermore, the building where Heidi Arundsen lived and Betty had once resided wasn’t owned by a single man. It was managed by a drunkard with a record, a man named Sylvester Swanson. But Swanson was paid by something called the Jigger Land Corporation, which had been purchased by a megacompany two years ago.
Tyson, Smith and Tryon.
He had sifted through facts on the building and the facts on cars. Laymon drove a white Ford SUV. Brad had a refurbished classic Mustang. Hank owned a Mercedes, a Rolls and a Jaguar. Ken Dryer wheeled around in a beige Infiniti, and Robert Adair had a ten-year-old Buick. None of them owed a black sedan.
But as Eileen Brideswell had pointed out, there were hundreds of them parked in the financial district on a daily basis. He knew for a fact that both police officers, given their positions, would have access to city vehicles, plenty of which were black sedans. Hank could probably drive anything he wanted from the corporate motor pool.
Did that cut down on the possibility that Brad was the likeliest suspect?
With that information tempering the edge of his suspicions, he was able to meet Brad with a pleasant greeting. In a few minutes, they each had a Guinness and were seated in a corner booth. Joe had intentionally chosen the seat facing the door so he could see who else came and went.
“All right, why am I here?” Brad asked suddenly.
Good, Joe thought. No messing around.
“You were friends with Genevieve O’Brien,” Joe said flatly.
Brad didn’t seem thrown by the question. “Yes. I knew her.”
“You dated her?”
He laughed. “She turned me down flat. No, wait, I can’t say that. She was charming, but she still said no. Said she was too busy to spend time on a casual affair with a guy who liked too many casual affairs. I tried to convince her that I was actually the perfect guy for her—I wouldn’t be too time consuming.”
“Certainly not—especially since you were living in Virginia.”
Brad waved a hand in the air. “It was a long time ago, a couple of years.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“Oh, sure. Now and then. I’d, um, run into her.”
Joe set the enhanced photo with Betty, Genevieve and Brad on the table.
“This you?”
“Sure looks like me.”
“You do realize that the other girl in that photo is one of the prostitutes who disappeared.”
“No!” Brad’s jaw fell. He was either a hell of an actor or he was honestly surprised.
“Did you ever, shall we say, enjoy her services?”
Brad was studying the picture; he seemed distracted. “No…there were one or two girls, but not her.” He looked up. “Hey, don’t go judging me. I like the bar scene. I like women. Sometimes I’d rather find a good whore than play games at a bar. Cut and dried. Payment up front. Look, my career means everything to me. I’m not interested in getting involved at the moment. Who knows? I might have fallen in love with Leslie, but she was already in love with Matt from the time I first met her. She’s still in love with him. Don’t kid yourself.”
“You can be connected to at least one of the missing hookers. You were friends of a sort with Genevieve. Some people might say that makes you look mighty damned suspicious.”
“For hiring whores?”
“How often did you come up from Virginia?” Joe demanded.
“A few weekends, that’s all.”
“It would be interesting to know what weekends.”
Brad stared at Joe, his jaw set. Then he shook his head. “You want my calendar? I’ll get it for you.”
“Do you want me to clear you? Get off your back?” Joe asked.
“Hell, yes, I want you to clear me. Maybe I should have offered you some of this information before, but, hell. You didn’t exactly explain that in a city of millions—more than a few of them total loonies—you’d decided someone around Leslie had to be a murderer. Or kidnapper. Or whatever.” He looked irritated. “Hey, you want to know who Genevieve had a beef with? Hank Smith.”
“What was her beef with him about?”
“I don’t know. I do know that one night when I was out for a stroll—looking to pick up a hooker, if you must know—I saw her with him in a coffee shop. I’d have said hello, but they didn’t see me. They were too busy fighting.”
Joe was glad he’d taken the seat facing the door when he saw Eileen Brideswell come in. She was with Robert Adair.
“You want some wings?” Joe asked.
“What?”
“Wings. Chicken wings. They call them clovers here. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, sure. Get some wings.”