DeMarco considered asking what would have happened if Huston had tried to touch her. Then he decided that the answer was irrelevant.
“And after that first meeting in the park, he came to Whispers every Thursday night. You spent twenty minutes with him in the champagne room, and you had a conversation.”
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s all of it.” A few moments passed before she added, “Except that it wasn’t every Thursday night after that. He missed one.”
“Do you remember which one?”
She gave it some thought. “It would have been the time before the last time he was there.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“He said he had to go out of town on business.”
DeMarco tried to think of something else he might ask. “Anything else you can tell me about your relationship with him?”
She thought for a few moments. “I gave him my phone number.”
“You did? When was that?”
“The last time he came to Whispers. I mean, it didn’t make any sense to me that he had to pay a cover charge and all just to talk to me. So I told him that. And I gave him my number. He promised to thank me in his new book. He said he’d like me to meet his wife sometime.”
With the final sentence, tears pooled in her eyes. DeMarco said, “Did he give you his number?”
She nodded. “He said that if I ever needed anything, just to let him know.”
“And did he ever call you? Or you call him?”
“Neither,” she said.
DeMarco watched her for a few moments. She was sitting with her head down, picking tears from the corners of her eyes.
And he asked himself, Was it just his kindness? Is that why she’s crying? And was his kindness real?
He had no answers. Finally he said, “So why did you run from me, Danni?”
“I don’t know. You’re a policeman. Thomas’s family has all been killed and he’s missing. I spent time with him at the club… I was scared, I guess.”
He studied her for a moment. “So you’re a senior this year?”
“I do my student teaching in the spring. Then I’m done. Graduate, get a job, maybe have a normal life for a change.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“There’s a guy I’m seeing.”
“Does he know you dance?”
“He lives in Pittsburgh. I only see him when I go down there.”
“How about your parents? Do they know?”
She did not move. Only her shoulders quivered. He saw one small dark spot appear on the edge of the sofa cushion, then another.
He crossed toward her, laid a hand on the top of her head. He said, “I might have to call you again, Danni, if I think of anything else to ask. Be safe when you run, okay? I know that mornings are nice but…be safe.”
Thirty-Eight
Back at the barracks, he dropped the white paper bag, long and slender, on Commander Bowen’s desk. “You want half of this?” Bowen asked.
“I want six dollars and forty-nine cents.”
Bowen reached for his wallet. “Learn anything useful?”
“At the moment I’d say no. But I have to process it to be sure. Something feels off.”
“You locate the contact?” He laid a five and two ones on the far edge of the table.
DeMarco picked up the bills, folded them, and slipped them into his pocket. “I found her, but there were no revelations. She’s just a kid. Decent kid at that.”
Bowen unwrapped the spinach roll, a long tube of baked pizza dough stuffed with spinach, mushrooms, and gooey mozzarella. “You sure you don’t want some of this?”
“Nah, I’m not hungry. I already licked it a few times on the way back.”
Bowen grinned, lifted the spinach roll to his mouth, and bit off the end. “She wasn’t getting it on with the suspect?”
“Says no. I’m inclined to believe her.”
“And why is that?”
“Can we have this conversation when there’s not cheese and spinach hanging out of your mouth?”
“I want you to know that I still have my concerns.”
“Hemorrhoid cream, liberally applied. Works every time.”
“All I’m saying is you knew the guy. Maybe it colors your judgment, maybe it doesn’t.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t get hemorrhoids if you didn’t sit around on your flat ass all day.”
Bowen waved him away. “Go. I’d rather be alone with this beauty anyway. I’m in heaven here.”
In his own office, DeMarco sat at his desk and stared at the screen saver on his monitor, a black background with what were supposed to be stars rushing forward as if he were speeding through deep space. To DeMarco it looked more like a snowstorm at night, the Arctic Express blasting toward him off Lake Erie.
He asked himself why he felt so tense. Ever since leaving Albion, his nerves had felt raw and abraded. Something sat leering at him from the edge of his consciousness, something he could not quite identify—something he should know, almost knew, but couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He reached for a legal pad, turned to a clean sheet, laid the tablet horizontal. Across the top he wrote three names, evenly spaced: Danni. Bonnie. Huston.
Under Danni’s name he wrote a.k.a. Annabel. And under that, I believe her.