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She studied him, trying to detect duplicity. “It seems like you’re telling me the truth.”
“Jesus, Mandy, hanging around Evelyn Mitchell’s turning you into the wrong kinda gal.” He pushed himself up from the table. “Get that report back to me first thing tomorrow morning.” He waited for her to nod, then went to the front of the room.
“Wow,” Vanessa said. She’d been strangely quiet. “What’s going on with you and Butch?”
Amanda shook her head. “I need to make a phone call.”
There were two telephones in the front of the room, but Amanda didn’t want to make her way through the crowd. Nor did she want to run into Rick Landry, who’d just walked into the station. The clock on the wall was straight up at eight o’clock. Sergeant Woody was still not here. Amanda wasn’t surprised. Woody had a reputation for hitting the bars before work. She might as well use his office.
Nothing much had changed since Luther Hodge had vacated the space. Paperwork was scattered across the blotter. The ashtray was brimming over. Woody hadn’t even bothered to get a new mug for his coffee.
Amanda sat down behind the desk and dug into her purse for her address book. The black leather was cracked and peeling. She thumbed to the C’s and traced her finger down to Pam Canale’s number at the Housing Authority. They weren’t close friends—the woman was Italian—but Amanda had helped Pam’s niece out of some trouble a few years ago. Amanda was hoping the woman wouldn’t mind returning the favor.
She checked the squad room before dialing Pam’s number, then waited while the call was transferred.
“Canale,” Pam said, but Amanda hung up. Sergeant Luther Hodge was heading back toward the office. His office.
She stood from the desk so fast that the chair hit the wall.
“Miss Wagner,” Hodge said. “Has there been a promotion about which I am uninformed?”
“No,” she said, then, “Sir.” Amanda scuttled around the desk. “I’m sorry, sir. I was making a phone call.” She stopped, trying to appear less flustered. The fact was that she was stunned. “Did you get transferred back here?”
“Yes, I did.” He waited for her to move out of his path so that he could sit down. “I suppose you think I’m holding water for your father.”
Amanda had been about to leave, but she couldn’t now. “No, sir. I was just making a phone call.” She remembered Evelyn, her boldness in confronting Hodge. “Why did you send me to Techwood last week?”
He had been about to sit at his desk. He paused midair, hand holding back his tie.
“You told us to investigate a rape. There was no rape.”
Slowly, he sat down. He indicated the chair. “Have a seat, Miss Wagner.”
Amanda started to close the door.
“Leave that open.”
She did as she was told, sitting opposite him at the desk.
“Are you trying to intimidate me, Miss Wagner?”
“I—”
“I realize your father still has many friends in this department, but I will not be intimidated. Is that clear?”
“Intimidated?”
“Miss Wagner, I may not be from around here, but I can tell you one thing for sure. One thing you can take straight back to your daddy: this nigger ain’t goin’ back into the fields.”
She felt her mouth working, but no words would come out.
“Dismissed.”
Amanda couldn’t move.
“Should I repeat my order?”
Amanda stood. She walked toward the open door. Her competing emotions compelled her to keep moving, to work this out in private, to formulate a more reasoned response than what actually came out of her mouth. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
Hodge had been writing something on a piece of paper. Probably a request to have her transferred to Perry Homes. His pen stopped. He stared at her, waiting.
Words got jumbled in her mouth. “I want to work. To be good at … I need to be good at …” She forced herself to stop speaking long enough to collect her thoughts. “The girl you sent us out to interview. Her name was Jane Delray. She wasn’t raped. She wasn’t injured. There wasn’t a scratch on her. She was fine.”
Hodge studied her a moment. He put down his pen. He sat back in his chair, his hands clasped in front of his stomach.
“Her pimp came in. His street name is Juice. He chased Jane out of the apartment. He made suggestive overtures toward me and Evelyn. We arrested him.”
Hodge continued to stare at her. Finally, he nodded.
“Last Friday, this woman was found dead at Techwood Homes. Jane Delray. It was reported as a suicide, but the coroner told me that she was strangled, then thrown from the building.”
Hodge was still looking at her. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“No, I’m not.” Even as Amanda said the words, she questioned herself. Was she certain that the victim was not Lucy Bennett? How was it possible to tell whether or not the corpse at the morgue was truly Jane Delray? Hank Bennett had been equally as certain that he was identifying his sister. But the face, the track marks, the scars on her wrists.
Amanda said, “The victim was not Lucy Bennett. It was Jane Delray.”
Her words floated up into the stale air. Amanda fought the urge to equivocate. This was the hardest lesson they had learned at the academy. It was a woman’s nature to be diminutive, to make peace. They’d spent hours raising their voices, giving orders rather than making requests.
Hodge steepled his fingers. “What’s your next step?”
She let some of the breath out of her lungs. “I’m meeting Evelyn Mitchell at the Union Mission. All the streetwalkers end up there eventually. It’s like their Mexico.” Hodge’s brow furrowed at the analogy. Amanda kept talking. “There has to be someone at the Union Mission who knew the girls.”
He kept studying her. “Did I mishear a plural?”
Amanda bit her lip. She longed for Evelyn’s presence. She was so much better at this. Still, Amanda couldn’t give up now. “The man you spoke to last Monday. The lawyer in the blue suit. His name is Hank Bennett. You thought he was sent by Andrew Treadwell.” Hodge didn’t disagree, so she continued. “I imagine he was here looking for his sister, Lucy Bennett.”
Hodge supplied, “And then, less than a week later, he found her.”
His statement hung between them. Amanda tried to analyze its meaning, but then a more pressing issue presented itself. Rick Landry barreled into the office. He reeked of whiskey. He threw his cigarette on the floor. “Tell this fucking broad to keep her nose out of my case.”
If Hodge was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he asked in a perfectly reasonable voice, “And you are?”
Landry was visibly taken aback. “Rick Landry. Homicide.” He glared at Hodge. “Where’s Hoyt?”
“I imagine Sergeant Woody is drinking his breakfast downtown.”
Again, Landry was taken off guard. It was commonly held on the force that a man’s drinking problem was his own business. “This is a homicide case. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with her. Or that mouthy bitch she’s been hangin’ around with.”
