The Night Detectives by Jon Talton Read Free Book Online Page B

decided to leave me. But I can’t understand how she could leave our baby.”
    Lindsey’s face again, whose eyes were such a deep blue that in certain light and certain mood they appeared violet. I thought about the new life I had held in my hands, minutes after gripping the potential death of the Colt Python in the same hands. It was a corny thought, to be sure. But Lindsey’s voice burned like acid on my face: You did this!
    Focus, Mapstone. “Why didn’t AFP get her addicted? That’s the usual M.O. for a pimp.”
    â€œShe convinced him she’d be worth more clean. She was good at convincing people. AFP sees himself as a businessman. She paid him straight, every week, until she disappeared and came to be with me.”
    â€œDid it bother you that she’d fucked all those men?”
    I phrased it as crudely as I could and he stared at the carpet. He was a natural suspect. Jealousy was always a prime motive, wronged spouses and boyfriends always prime suspects.
    â€œAll those men, their dicks inside her.” I spoke tawdry fluently. “It would sure bother me. It would bother me to find that my wife had been fucking even one man other than me.”
    Trust me. Only every second, splinters under my skin. But the splinters didn’t want to make me kill her.
    I said, “I know you’re a nice guy, Tim. But didn’t it get to you? Did you ever think about killing her when you thought about all those men…”
    â€œNo!” His face flushed apple-red.
    I took my time, studying his expression and body language, and letting the silence work for me, having watched Peralta interrogate many suspects.
    Finally, Tim drew up his wiry frame. “That was in the past. She regretted it. I loved her. I’d rather die than hurt her.”
    I believed him. He didn’t have murder in him.
    â€œDid she ever talk about a man named Larry Zisman? He used to be a pro football player. Owned a condo downtown.”
    â€œWas that one of her clients?”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œThe name doesn’t sound familiar,” he said. “And she didn’t talk about those men. I didn’t want to know and she didn’t tell me.”
    â€œSo you guys lived alone here. What about friends?”
    â€œWe’d say hi to neighbors. It’s that kind of place. Grace stayed in touch with Addison…”
    â€œWho the hell is that? A man or a woman?”
    â€œA woman. She was her best friend.”
    â€œDid she visit?”
    Tim said that Addison had visited several times, but they never left O.B.
    â€œAddison didn’t know anything about Grace’s, you know, business.”
    â€œI need her contact information.” Then I asked when he had seen Grace last.
    â€œThe morning of April twenty-second. I had classes. When I came home, she was gone. I never even got a text goodbye. All her stuff is still here. It doesn’t make any sense.”
    â€œAre you afraid she’s gone back to the life?”
    He shook his head. “She said she was done and I believed her. She got rid of her old phone, even. We were good together.” He sighed. “I wanted to save her from the past.”
    Tim Lewis looked like a weak reed of a white knight, but his sincerity was obvious. I had gone through my white-knight phase. Now I was covered with tarnish. I made him go through the day she disappeared in detail. He had gone to classes at eight-thirty that morning. Grace was with the baby at home. When he returned around three that afternoon, she was gone. All she took was her purse and cell phone. She always carried pepper spray and a knife in that purse. Nothing had seemed unusual in their apartment.
    â€œWhy didn’t you go to the police?”
    â€œI filed a missing person’s report the next day. The cops made me wait twenty-four hours and even then they didn’t take me very seriously. I could tell. They thought she’d left me.