The Truth About Comfort Cove

was looking fine in her dark slacks and white blouse and appeared far more fragile than he knew her to be.

“Can I take a rain check? I’m on my way out to do a canvass for Bill.”

“You ever get tired carrying around all that weight, Miller?” Pushing the elevator button he glanced back at her over his

shoulder. “What weight?”

“The million or so rain checks you’ve asked for and never

cashed in.”

Lucky for Ramsey the elevator door opened and sucked

him in, forestalling his need to reply.

R amsey showed pictures of Bill’s vic to half a dozen people before he got a hit. A wino he knew—an ageless and mostly toothless guy who’d hung out on Ramsey’s doorstep with him back when he’d been a beat cop nursing a broken marriage, a guy he knew only as Pops—admitted to Ramsey that he’d taken twenty dollars from the guy in exchange for his clothes.

“Guy give me ’is suit, doo,” Pops said in the voice Ramsey knew well. He’d never been able to tell if Pops slurred because he was drunk, or because he was ancient and toothless. Over the years he’d talked to Pops at all times of the day and night and the old man always sounded the same.

The mostly homeless loner always smelled the same, too. Rank. In spite of Ramsey’s repeated attempts to help the man.

Two of his first real street lessons he’d learned from Pops. People are what they are because of the choices they make and sometimes they’re going to be homeless no matter what kind of help they get—because they continue to make those choices.

“This guy was wearing a suit?” Ramsey asked

now, glad he’d pulled his coat out of the backseat of his sedan before he’d hiked his way to the not-so-nice end of Main Street. Darkness had lowered the temperature considerably.

“Yep.” Pops’s intonation went down instead of up. “Give id do me, doo,” the old man said in a language Ramsey understood from years of communicating with the guy.

“You still have it?”

“’Pends.”

Reaching into the pocket of the brown slacks that matched his brown tie, Ramsey pulled out a twenty. “On what?” he asked, slipping the bill far enough into Pops’s ripped shirt pocket that it didn’t immediately fall back out.

“On if you wanna look innat bin.” Pops pointed to a halfsmashed cardboard box, about the size of a large microwave oven, that was crammed under a couple of broken cement steps outside an old Laundromat.

A couple of minutes later, with the suit safely tucked in a shopping bag that he’d used his badge to procure from the convenience store on the corner, Ramsey was heading up the walk of an apartment complex that he’d passed countless times back when he’d lived in the area, but never had reason before to visit.

The address he’d acquired earlier that day—a woman who might know delivery driver Jack Colton.

He knocked. With his hands tucked into the deep pockets of his tan, calf-length overcoat, he pulled the edges of the outer garment together while he waited. And then knocked again.

A shuffling noise sounded from the other side of the door. The porch light came on. And then a dead bolt turned. The door opened a crack and a wrinkled, pert-nosed face peered through the small opening.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“Are you Amelia Hardy?”

“Yes. How can I help you?”

The elderly woman’s forehead barely measured as high as Ramsey’s chest. She was plump and stooped. And sounded like sunshine.

He smiled. Kept his voice easy as he introduced himself, stated his precinct and showed her his detective badge. “I’m looking for someone who lived in this building about twentyfive years ago,” he said. Reaching into the pocket of his sport coat, he pulled out a photo of a younger Jack Colton. “This man. Do you remember ever seeing him before?”

“Hmm.” Amelia frowned and bent over his hand until her nose was almost touching his palm. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Can I take it inside to get a better look? I have my magnifiers there.”

“Of course,” Ramsey said, his hands folded in front of him as he waited.