“Something you didn’t tell the authorities when you debriefed?” Frankie encouraged.
Cole squirmed in his chair. “Hmm, I dunno. I mighta – uh, overheard – some talk, uh – about stuff that’s not – uh, usual.”
Frankie and Cruz exchanged a glance, intrigued by Cole’s sudden bout of stuttering. “What?” both said in unison.
Cole downed the rest of his coffee, shoved his plate and cup aside, and folded his hands on the table top. “I dunno if it means anything, but I heard some chatter ‘fore I went into the SHU, right before that dust up in the yard.”
“What kind of chatter?” Cruz asked.
“Jest bullshitting, you know how the guys do.” Cole looked at Frankie.
“What was the BS about, Cole? How was it different from the usual talk?” Frankie asked.
Cole scratched his head, pulled on his ear lobe, and frowned, as if thinking was a complex trigonometry problem he couldn’t quite get his mind around. “Jest, like dealing in illegals, you know?”
“Drugs?” asked Cruz.
“Nah, not the usual stuff. Things I never heard of before. Like – okay, this is stupid – but it was about, like, music – a piano or keyboard, somethin’ like that – music.” He looked hopefully at them with sad, worried eyes. “They talkin’ about pirated DVD’s or CD’s, you think?”
“Music?” Frankie echoed, frustration warming her cheeks. She breathed deeply and tried to calm herself. “Cole, think about this. Do you mean musical instruments?”
She glanced at Cruz, who closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in frustration. She noticed, irrelevantly, and with some disappointment, that he’d shaved off his five-o’clock shadow.
“Get serious, Cole,” Cruz said patiently. “They wouldn’t deal in pirated material. There’s not enough profit. Could ‘music’ be a code for weapons? Are they gun trafficking?”
“Sure, they are.” Cole looked surprised that he’d even ask. “Everyone deals in guns. I told you.”
“Do you think it’s something more than guns?” Cruz asked, even as Cole bobbed his head, a vague expression on his face.
Music? What did it mean? And how was it connected to Frankie?
Patch Wilson finished up the autopsy on Dickey Hinchey around 10 p.m. Howard Casey had gotten off work at five, and the morgue was eerily silent. The body was stitched up and a white sheet drawn up to his neck.
This autopsy had occurred when Patch was in the Bahamas, and was performed by a local physician called in as a substitute coroner. Dr. Mason Foster was a general practitioner, older than dirt. Patch knew he often rubber-stamped the conclusions of the police department.
Patch shook his head and vowed never to vacation again.
The Rosedale Police Department had ruled death by multiple knife wounds. While this was a fact, in spite of the blows to the head and body, the puzzle of how and why Dickey Hinchey had died was a much more complicated conundrum than that. One that Patch enjoyed trying to solve through forensics.
The first murder, which was actually the second autopsy he completed, appeared to be similar to the first autopsied body – that of the seventeen-year-old young woman. But there was a very important difference.
Patch rolled the body into the autopsy drawer and reached for his cell phone. He hesitated, considered the late hour, unsure if any of his findings were significant.
He punched the numbers to Slater’s phone anyway.
Chapter 39
In the garage Frankie made a bed on a camping cot covered with a sleeping bag and blankets. Cole washed up in the bathroom off the laundry room and seemed glad to rest and be by himself.
“I don’t like leaving you alone with him,” Cruz said as he shut the garage door behind him and followed Frankie into the kitchen. “He’s an ex-con and unpredictable.”
“He’s harmless.” She smiled. “I’ve established a relationship with Cole and he trusts me. I’ll be okay.”
Cruz took the coffee cup she handed him as they entered the kitchen, stared intently at her. “You’re too soft. That’s going to put you in serious danger one day.” He reached up to wrap a loose curl around her ear. Inappropriate, he knew, and stepped back awkwardly.
She pretended not to notice. “Maybe, but it’s better than being cynical and untrusting.”
Was that a poke at him?
Not ready to go yet, he said, “Before I leave, let’s take another look at the note.”
Frankie pulled a sheet of paper from a bookcase and laid it on the kitchen table. The original note lay between them like an inexplicable omen of foreboding. Carefully, she copied the letters and numbers one by one, this time writing them vertically instead of the way they were initially written – horizontally.
1BTO+O-HKDD11-15RP10P
Cruz laughed. “It’s worse that way.”
“Maybe not,” Frankie began. “It’s clear the first symbol is a one – ”
“Or the lower case letter ‘l.’”