New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

“Yeah, yeah.” She shoved at the mess of her two-toned hair. “He headed up the program, was like the counselor, and he did that stuff for inmates. I got messed up when Isaac cut me off, and I dropped out of the program, got sort of deeper into the issues awhile. I’m clean now. Swear to God.”

“I believe you. Did he ever talk to you about his plans?”

“Well, sometimes he talked about finding a way out, and when he did how he’d set the record straight with the cop who set him up. I guess that’s you.”

“Did you ever smuggle anything in to him?”

“Look, look, I’m clean. Nine months clean, and I got a regular job. It may not seem like much to you, but I haven’t been clean, not really, since I was fifteen.”

“I’m not going to hassle you about it,” Eve told her. “But”—she tapped Julie’s photo again—“I need to know.”

“Okay, well, maybe, sometimes, I’d pass stuff to Stib, or to this guard—”

“Lovett?”

“If you already know why ask me?”

“What stuff?”

“Well, maybe, sometimes, some kiddie porn. He had a weakness, who was I to judge?”

“Is that all?”

“Maybe electronic stuff.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know—hand to God—I don’t know much about that shit. He’d give me lists, and I’d go get it. Even paid for it mostly. Prick! He said how electronics was a hobby, and they wouldn’t let him have the stuff he wan

ted inside. I mean, what was the harm? He was so nice. He called me baby doll. Nobody ever called me baby doll. And he sent me flowers. Twice.”

“A real romantic.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I thought.” Slumping, she sulked into her coffee. “Then he gave me the boot, and now you’re saying he really did that to those kids. Maybe I should’ve known it, but I had those issues back then. You see things different when you’re clean.”

“If McQueen contacts you, contact me. If he comes to the door, don’t let him in. Alert nine-one-one and contact me.”

“You bet your ass I will.” She took Eve’s card.

“Do yourself a favor. Don’t contact Stibble.”

“I got zip to say to that son of a bitch. Jesus, I really liked the guy. Sick fuck.”

“Your take?” Eve asked Peabody as they headed back to the car.

“Same as yours. She was telling it straight. I don’t think McQueen’s given her a thought in the last two years. I can’t see him paying her a visit.”

“No, but the thought he might will have her telling us anything else she thinks of, and it confirmed Stibble as the liaison.”

“And we’ve got a lot more than zip to say to that son of a bitch.”

“Bet your ass.”

5

They found Stibble in a shoe-box storefront he used for addiction counseling. He looked, Eve decided, even more like a ferret in person than in his ID documents. The short, curly beard he sported didn’t do anything to soften his pointy chin, and the rosetinted shades on his short hook of a nose only added an element of silly.

Those, the skinny braid down the back of his white, hooded tunic, and the pair of leather bracelets around his bony ankles combined to fall somewhere between affected Free-Ager and urban monk.