“Yeah. Missing fingers. Seever did it to every one of his victims, and now Secondhand is too. I thought you read Seever’s case file.”
“I didn’t get through the whole thing, a few pages in—it’s a big file. I didn’t have a clue about the fingers.”
“We never released that detail to the public,” Hoskins says, grabbing a pencil and spinning it on the desktop, until it settles to a stop, the sharp lead tip pointing right at him, dead at his heart.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s gross. And sometimes it’s best to keep information back, in case you need to use it later.” Hoskins scoops up the pencil, drops it back into the cup, tip down. “Like now. Secondhand knows that Seever took their fingers, so he’s doing it. So he must’ve known Seever before, worked with him.”
Ted rolls his eyes, crosses his arms over his chest.
“What if Secondhand found out about these fingers some other way?” Ted asks.
“How would he do that? We kept pretty closemouthed about it,” Hoskins says. “Made sure only a select few knew. And all those people still work for the department.”
“Okay,” Ted says, rocking back in the chair. He’s got his thinking cap on, his tongue is sticking out one corner of his mouth, and it makes Hoskins want to laugh, but he doesn’t. Sometimes a good idea can come from the strangest place, even from a kid with tight-ass pants who wants to be called Dinky. “So let’s say everyone kept their mouth shut. It could’ve gotten out a different way. Someone might’ve hacked into our database. It’s happened before.”
“When?”
“A year and a half ago,” Ted says. “We were never able to figure out exactly what information was stolen. Seever’s file might’ve been something that was copied. It might be published on the Internet somewhere, for anyone to see.”
“That happens?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ted says, sitting up straight. “Man, you can find everything online. Crime-scene photos, autopsy reports. Everything. If you think something’s secret, you should search for it online. You’d be surprised.”
“Have you searched for stuff on Seever?” Hoskins asks. God, he feels so old talking to Ted, not understanding half of what’s going on. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that no one had a computer or a cell phone, and if you wanted information you went to the library, took a long stroll through the card catalog or the microfiche.
“Yeah, but I didn’t find much. I can peek around some more if you’d like, see if I can find anything about this finger thing.”
“That would be great,” Hoskins says, standing up and clapping a hand on Ted’s shoulder. It’s nice to have the kid back in the basement. “Good man. I’ll run out for lunch while you do this. Chinese all right?”
*
Ted’s still working at Hoskins’s desk when he gets back, and he groans and gratefully holds out his hands for the takeout box of lo mein.
“You ever consider there might be something wrong with you?” Ted asks, waving at all the pictures on the wall, the case files Hoskins has torn apart and pinned up. “I don’t know how you can stand to work like this, with all these dead people watching you.”
“That’s why I’m a detective, and you’re in IT,” Hoskins says. “You get anything back yet?”
“Our system needs updating,” Ted says, sighing and ruffling his hair. “It takes so damn long to pull up anything, especially if it’s a wide search like this one.”
“Oh, take your time,” Hoskins says, sitting down and ripping open a pack of chopsticks. “It’s not an emergency, there’s just a serial killer on the loose and we don’t know when someone else will turn up dead. No big deal.”
“Sarcasm hurts, you know?” Ted says, turning to glare at him. “I get it. I’m working as fast as I can.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, you had a visitor while you were gone.”
“Who?”
“Your old partner. Loren?”
“He should’ve called me.”
“I told him that,” Ted says, jamming noodles into his mouth and slurping them down, making them vanish like hair down a shower drain. “He said he did.”
Hoskins pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. Three missed calls, all of them from Loren. He hadn’t even heard it ring, and he had it cranked all the way up.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“Nope. But he left that for you.” Ted points with his chopsticks at a package leaning against the wall beside the door.
“What is it?”
“He didn’t volunteer that information,” Ted says, carefully dabbing the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “This might be a surprise to you, but Ralph Loren isn’t exactly the friendliest guy around.”
Hoskins snorts, drops into a chair, and grabs the package, holds it across his thighs. It’s flat and rectangular, taller than it is wide, and wrapped in brown paper. He jams his finger under the flap and rips it open, and then he must make some kind of alarming noise, although afterward he can’t remember doing it, because Ted jumps up, his face twisted with concern.