“Which is the second Tuesday of every other month,” Alma put in.
“He’s not that bad. But close,” Brodie admitted. “I used him more when I was first getting started. The drinking wasn’t as bad, and I couldn’t afford much better. But he only worked for me at The Sanctuary two or three times. Because . . .” he said when Eve just looked at him. “Well, because he showed up a little less than half sober and . . .” Brodie shifted as if he’d sat on a pile of rocks. “Well, he could be kind of a dick when he’d had a few.”
“Brodie, he’s a dick when he breathes. He’s a total asshole when he’s had a few.”
“You stopped taking him to work at The Sanctuary because he came to work drunk, and acted like a dick. Why don’t you describe the dickishness?”
Brodie winced at Eve. “It’s just, you know, a couple of guys on a job might make some comment about a good-looking woman walking by. Maybe you could say a sort of crude comment sometimes.”
“Please.” Alma punched him in the shoulder, laughed. “We all do it. Depending which side of the fence you’re on, some icy type comes in view, you remark.” She shrugged. “Time-honored tradition of the trade.”
“Yeah, well, the thing is, Clip remarked, but we’re talking kids, you know? Okay, we were younger then, but old enough not to make . . . remarks about girls that age. I told him to knock it off. It was, you know, inappropriate. He mostly did, but I’d catch him giving them looks, or talking to some of them a little too . . . close, I guess, when he was supposed to be on break. It just didn’t sit right with me, so I pulled him off there, gave him some other work.”
“What kind of remarks?”
“I don’t remember exactly, honest to God,” he told Eve. “I just remember I didn’t like it, and didn’t like the idea he was sort of hitting on teenagers.”
“He hit on me,” Alma announced, and had her husband’s jaw dropping.
“What? What? When?”
“Back then a couple times, a couple times since.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“You think I can’t handle myself, babe?”
“No, you can handle yourself. But—son of a bitch.”
“He was always pissed-faced drunk. Hell, he hit on Lydia. She’s eighty-three,” Alma explained. “She does our books. He’s a dog, no question, and I can see him trying to cop a feel as long as it’s female. Age not an issue. But I can’t see him hurting anybody. Ever.”
“No, no, he’d never hurt anybody. He’s an asshole, but—cop a feel? Did he try that on you?”
“Remember that mouse he was sporting after the Fourth of July cookout about six, seven years back? Who do you think popped him?”
This time both hands went to his hair. “Alma, jeez! Why don’t you tell me this stuff?”
“Because then you’d’ve popped him, and I already had. And it was the last time he tried to mess with me. He apologized when he sobered up. What I’m saying, Lieutenant, is say you’re sitting at a bar, waiting for somebody or just trying to have a quiet drink. He’s the type who’d be all over you, thinking he’s witty-like or sexy or whatever, when what he is? Drunk and stupid and annoying. But he’s not the type who’d follow you out of the bar and get physical or get riled up and start something when you tell him to blow. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, but I want to talk to him. I’d appreciate his contact information.”
“Sure. Yeah. Crap.” Brodie boosted up a hip, pulled out his pocket ’link, then read off the data. “Right now I want to punch him in the face, but I have to say, he’d never do anything like this. He wouldn’t have done anything to those girls. I mean, yeah, he might’ve gotten drunk enough back then to try for some touch, but he wouldn’t have killed anybody.”
“Okay. Did you ever see anyone come around, or notice anyone who worked there who gave you a bad feeling?”
“I can’t say I did, or remember. I was juggling a lot of small jobs back then, trying to get a good toehold. It wasn’t like I was there every day or anything. Sometimes I’d be there a few days running, but mostly it was spotty. They’d call me in for some little thing they couldn’t fix, or to fix something they’d tried to fix and screwed up more than it was screwed up to begin with. I got more work out of it—doing stuff for some of the staff, doing stuff for people Nash and Philly recommended me to.”
“Impressions, on any of the staff, including Nash and Philly.”
“They were doing good work, still are, and it takes a lot of doing from what I can see. There’s no clocking in and out.”
“One more thing.” Eve brought Linh’s image on screen. “Does she look familiar?”
“Wow, really pretty kid. No.” He glanced over at his wife, who shook her head. “Is she one of the . . .”
“She is.”
“God.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, angled, took another, longer look. “She doesn’t ring any bells. I don’t know if I’d remember after all this time, but she’s got a really distinctive face, you know? A stunner waiting to happen.”