The Poet by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online

kid?” Wexler looked confused.
    “Nope.”
    “Then don’t call me it, either.”
    Wexler raised his arms in a hands-off manner.
    “Why can’t I see the file? You’re not going anywhere with it.”
    “Who says?”
    “I do. You’re afraid of it, man. You saw what it did to Sean and you don’t want it to happen to you. So the case is stuck in a drawer somewhere. It’s got dust on it. I guarantee it.”
    “You know, Jack, you’re seriously full of shit. And if you weren’t your brother’s brother, I’d throw you outta here on your ass. You’re getting me pissed. I don’t like being pissed.”
    “Yeah? Then imagine how I’m feeling. The thing of it is, I am his brother and I think that cuts me in.”
    St. Louis gave a smirking type of laugh meant to belittle me.
    “Hey, Big Dog, isn’t it about time you went out and watered a fire hydrant or something?” I said.
    Wexler burst out with the start of a laugh but quickly contained it. But St. Louis’s face turned red.
    “Listen, you little fuck,” he said. “I’ll put you-“
    “All right, boys,” Wexler intervened. “All right. Listen, Ray, why don’t you go outside and have a smoke? Let me talk to Jackie, straighten him out, and I’ll be out.”
    I got out of the booth so St. Louis could slide out. He gave me the dead man’s stare as he went by. I slid back in.
    “Drink up, Wex. No sense acting like there isn’t any Beam on the table.”
    Wexler grinned and took a pull from his glass.
    “You know, twins or not, you’re a lot like your brother. You don’t give up on things easy. And you can be a smart-ass. You get rid of that beard and the hippie hair and you could pass for him. You’d have to do something about that scar, too.”
    “Look, what about the file?”
    “What about it?”
    “You owe it to him to let me see it.”
    “I don’t follow, Jack.”
    “Yes, you do. I can’t put it behind me until I’ve looked it all over. I’m just trying to understand.”
    “You’re also trying to write about it.”
    “Writing does for me what you got in that glass does for you. If I can write about it, I can understand it. And I can put it in the ground. That’s all I want to do.”
    Wexler looked away from me and picked up the check the waitress had left. Then he downed the rest of his drink and slid out of the booth. Standing, he looked down at me and let out a heavy breath redolent of bourbon.
    “Come back to the office,” he said. “I’ll give you one hour.”
    He held his finger up and repeated himself in case I was confused.
    “One hour.”
    In the CAPs squad room I used the desk my brother had used. No one had taken it yet. Maybe it was a bad-luck desk now. Wexler was standing at a wall of file cabinets looking through an open drawer. St. Louis was nowhere to be seen, apparently choosing to have nothing to do with this. Wexler finally stepped away from the drawer with two thick files. He placed them in front of me.
    “This everything?”
    “Everything. You got an hour.”
    “C’mon, there’s five inches of paper here,” I tried. “Let me take it home and I’ll bring it-“
    “See, just like your brother. One hour, McEvoy. Set your watch, because those go back in the drawer in one hour. Make that fifty-nine minutes. You’re wasting time.”
    I stopped belaboring the point and opened the top file.
    Theresa Lofton had been a beautiful young woman who came to the university to study for an education degree. She wanted to be a first-grade teacher.
    She was in her first year and lived in a campus dorm. She carried a full curriculum as well as working part-time in the day care center at the university’s married-housing dorm.
    Lofton was believed to have been abducted on or near the campus on a Wednesday, the day after classes ended for the Christmas break. Most students had already left for the holiday. Theresa was still in Denver for two reasons. She had her job; the day care center didn’t close for the holidays until the