“Larry! How nice to see you. That’s right, no keeping me out of my rightful position.”
The homicide unit had historically been seen as a man’s job, inside the bureau. No more, he thought.
“I thought you had retired,” she said. “What brings you out?”
She was standing next to a dumpster that was smeared with blood. It looked like Reggie had died near where he had fallen. The body, a few feet away, was covered with a privacy sheet.
“We talked with the decedent a week or so ago,” he said. “Me and that young lady standing over there. I told her to wait.”
Sharon glanced at Amanda, then turned back to Larry, curious. Larry wasn’t known for being overly friendly, and she wondered how he had made such a nice-looking friend. His voice had been positively paternal when he mentioned her.
“What did you talk to him about?” she asked, pulling out her notepad.
Larry told her. She took notes, including his current phone number.
“His partner called me,” Larry said. “He said Reggie was stabbed.”
“Maybe,” she replied cautiously.
Jerry and his friends were at the end of the alley, being held back by patrol officers. Larry remembered having that job.
“You might want to have the medical examiner check the stab wounds to see if they match a knife like this.”
Larry showed her the picture of a hunting knife with a gut hook.
“They must have buried this report,” Amanda said on the drive back to the coast. She was in the passenger seat, reading. Larry admired that. He always got sick trying to read in a car.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. These mountains held a lot of risk-taking deer. He and Amanda had already passed a car totaled by one.
“Because they didn’t do anything,” she said, turning a page. “Martha was only ten at the time. Her gym teacher saw blood on her underwear. She called child protective services. Martha told them her dad took her into the desert every Sunday. She said she couldn’t remember why. Her mother refused to talk. She had bruises on her neck.”
“Sexual abuse is hard to prove.”
“A doctor found evidence of sexual trauma.”
Larry grunted.
“The police didn’t seem to do anything,” Amanda said.
“Hewasthe police, remember?”
Amanda put the report in her lap. She closed her eyes. They drove in silence.
“Larry?”
“Yeah?”
“What made you want to become a cop?”
“Never gave it much thought, to be honest,” he said. “I was eighteen, casting about for what I wanted to do. I checked out being a firefighter. It’s got decent income. Steady work was what I was looking for. I decided on being a police officer because they had a hiring bonus back then. It’s as simple as that.”
“When did you get married?”
“Five years later. I met Marjorie on my beat, actually. She was the same age as me, working in a toy store.”
“A toy store?”
“Yeah. Downtown. Called Finnegan’s. Not far from where Reggie lives—lived—actually. I would walk by. Never went in, because why would I? Then one day I got called to this liquor store up the street, and Marjorie and I practically ran into each other on the sidewalk. As they say, she had me at hello.” He was smiling. “What a girl. That’s what I always called her. My girl.”
