He cleaned some metal canisters. “Then a couple of weeks ago, she met somebody here.”
“Phaedra came in with somebody?”
“No,” he said. “Phaedra came in alone and ordered. This woman came in after her and they talked at a table for a few minutes.”
“What did she look like?”
“Not bad-looking, if she hadn’t had such a hard look in her eyes. Older. Kinda light brown hair, straight, but pulled back.” He thought about it for a moment. “She called her Julie. Phaedra did.”
I felt a little sizzle at the back of my neck.
“You’re sure this was two weeks ago?” I asked. “Not a month ago, maybe?”
“It would have been the Monday before last,” he said. “I remembered how upset she seemed.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Fine. What was Phaedra like? Glad to see the woman?”
“No, man. She seemed really agitated, now that I think about it. Spilled part of her coffee. They sat back there”-he pointed to a table-“for maybe five minutes. They were really into it. Phaedra was waving her hands, pushing back her hair-you know, the way pretty long-haired women do? Rubbing her eyes. Whatever this other
chick was saying was upsetting her.”
“What happened next?”
“They left.”
“Together?”
He nodded.
“You have a good memory,” I said.
“I’m in criminology at ASU,” he said. “I want to get into the FBI. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Lose the stubble and earrings, I thought. Or maybe not. The world keeps changing.
“You want to know who she was seeing? The redhead? My buddy Noah did ask her out, and I guess they hit it off. I didn’t know if I should tell you, but you seem okay.” I wrote down Noah’s address and phone number.
“I hope she’s not in trouble,” he said as I turned to go.
I walked out into the hot evening and finally had the “Oh shit!” moment I had been working up to for several days, since Julie first disappeared. I realized that, divorced from my sentimental feelings about her, I didn’t know Julie Riding very well at all. She’d told me she had joint custody of her daughter, but in reality, she had lost custody. She’d told me cocaine was in her past, but now I knew it was part of her present. She’d told me she hadn’t seen her sister for a month before Phaedra turned up murdered, but a witness had just placed Julie with Phaedra the night before the body was found. I had argued with Peralta to protect Julie-because I know her-but it occurred to me with sudden, awful clarity that I didn’t know her, not really. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Oh shit.
Noah wasn’t home, so I headed back to my house empty-handed. I was already out of sorts when the phone rang a little after 10:00 P.M.
“I didn’t know if I should just leave you alone or not,” said Lindsey.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have called.” It was a cliche. And there was an edge in my voice.
“No,” she said. “No reason for you to worry about that. But I heard about what happened last night.…”
“I’m okay. It was over pretty quickly.”
“I know,” she said, and the line was silent. Over the airconditioning, I could actually hear a train whistle from down at the Santa Fe yards.
“Oh, Lindsey,” I began. I thought, How I wish you were in my arms on this lonely, desolate night. Silence again.