Sidekicks by Linda Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

after school at his office about a missing child. She never used abbreviations.
    "Who?" I wondered aloud.
    My dealings with the Martinsburg PD had all been confined to Detective Jeff Pence, a believer with limited powers of his own. And while I knew most of the other cops, I had no idea who this Simms guy was. I relayed the request to my friends, telling them I'd take them home first. But they both wanted to go with me, so we headed that way. "Anyone remember a policeman named Curt Simms?"
    My question wasn't that crazy. Though our little parishes were under a sheriff's jurisdiction, they'd gone with me to the Martinsburg police station on more than one occasion and knew most of the cops there as well as I did.
    "Not right off, but the name sure rings a bell." Brynn thought for a minute. "Oh I know. His ex-wife Tina was one of Mom's regulars. Lived in Blue Springs, I think, so he must've been on the force there." She referred to a town as small as Ville Cachée. Brynn's mother styled hair at the Special Day Salon in Martinsburg and was really good at it. So she had customers from all over and knew just about everyone.
    Brynn thought for a second and then continued. "As far as I can remember, their divorce, which happened a couple of years ago, was really ugly. She's Filipino with a huge family in the New Orleans area. Mom said when four of her brothers came up to help her and the kids move, Detective Simms flipped out. He really loved his kids and was totally pissed that she was taking them south even though the judge said she could." Trust Brynn to have the scoop, but then beauty shops were notorious for gossip, as were small towns where everybody knew each other.
    That information definitely helped put me at ease. Though I didn't know the guy, I already felt sorry for him and knew I could definitely work with a cop who'd experienced that kind of pain. No wonder he was interested in finding lost children. In a way, he'd lost two of his own.
    Just as we got to the front entrance of the police station, Tyler nudged me. I looked where he looked and saw Cooper, oblivious to us and headed into the Merrill Lynch building just down the street. I remembered that his mom had worked in finances in Birmingham. Was her office in there?
    As always, Sergeant Mark, the cop at the front counter, waved me on back. I found Detective Simms's office easily enough since he'd taken over the desk of Detective Pence, who was on special assignment according to the sergeant. Since the detective was on the phone, my friends and I quietly took a seat across the desk from him.
    I'd never been very good a guessing ages, especially guys' ages. But I decided that Detective Carl Simms could be anywhere from forty-five to fifty. He styled his brown hair military short, as in buzzed, and had a cleanly shaved jaw line. As on so many males, thick, long eyelashes rimmed his golden brown eyes, an injustice to all us females stuck with applying mascara every day. Detective Simms wore plain clothes, though he did have a badge mounted on a leather thingy stuck in his shirt pocket and plainly visible.
    I scanned the room, noting changes made in Pence's absence. There weren't that many. Beyond one photo of a gorgeous dark-haired woman with two precious children everything seemed just the same, as in very cluttered. Folders littered the desk and credenza. I saw a dirty coffee cup, a half-open pizza box from Spinelli's, and piles of forms and papers. My only reaction? I needed to tell Mom and Dad that Spinelli's, our competition, might be delivering, something we didn't do.
    A young woman stood at a bulletin board to our right, taking down grainy black and white crime scene photos that I didn't care to examine. I thought of all the cop movies I'd seen. Clearly law enforcement's surrounding themselves with photos related to the crime was not just a Hollywood action-movie practice.
    Simms hung up the phone and gave us his attention. "Which of you young ladies is