Hour Game (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 2)

King and Michelle exchanged brief glances. They seemed to be reading each other’s mind. That way Bailey and the Bureau can call all the shots, make the arrest and get all the credit.

“Speaking of leads,” said King, “do you have any?”

Bailey leaned back in his chair. “It’s a little early to tell, but now that we’ve got the manpower out there, something will pop.”

“Anything turn up on the Zodiac watch?” asked Michelle.

“Dead end,” said Bailey. “There was no other trace of any significance at the crime scenes or on the bodies. We canvassed Diane Hinson’s neighborhood. No one saw anything. We’ve talked to the families and schoolmates of Canney and Pembroke. There’s no jealous rival out there with a guilty conscience.”

“And Rhonda Tyler?” asked King. “What’s her backstory?”

Bailey leafed through his notes. “Contrary to what you might think, the FBI does know how to assemble the facts, Sean,” he said. “She was born in Dublin, Ohio. Dropped out of high school and hit the road to L.A. to become an actress. Right! After that dream popped, she developed a drug habit, headed east, did a little time in jail for a couple of misdemeanors and headed south. She’d been an exotic dancer for about four years in a string of clubs from Virginia to Florida. Her contract at the Aphrodisiac was up about two weeks before she was killed.”

“Where was she staying when she disappeared?” asked Michelle.

“Not sure. The club has some rooms that the girls use when they’re performing there. They’re on the house and they come with three squares a day, so they’re pretty popular with the strippers—excuse me, exotic dancers. I spoke with Lulu Oxley, the manager. She said that Tyler had stayed in one of those rooms for a while when she first came there but then found another place.”

“While she was still working at the club?” asked King.

“Right. Why?”

“Well, these dancers can’t make all that much money, so free room and board must be pretty hard to give up. Did she have any friends or family in the area she might have been staying with?”

“No. But we’re trying to find out where she was staying during that time.”

“That really needs to be followed up on, Chip,” said King. “If she found herself a sugar daddy close to when she was murdered, we need to know who he is. It could very well be the guy who put a pistol in her mouth and left her for the wolves.”

“Funny, we had the same thought,” said Bailey, unable to hold back a sneer.

“Did you talk to the Battles yet?” asked Williams.

“I was going over there today,” said the FBI man. “Care to join me?”

“Why don’t you take Sean and Michelle along instead?”

“Fine,” Bailey said, frowning.

After covering other points of the investigation, the meeting was adjourned. While Bailey gave additional orders to his men, Williams buttonholed King and Michelle. “Okay, I was right: the feds call the shots and take the glory.”

“Maybe not, Todd,” said Michelle. “I can’t say they’re being unreasonable. And it’s more important that this psycho be caught, regardless of who does it.”

“True. Still, it’d be a lot better if the people who nabbed him were us.”

“We’ll go to the Battles’ and see what we can find out,” said King. “But don’t expect miracles, Todd. This guy knows what he’s doing.”

“The killer or Bailey?” he said irritably.

They drove over to the Battles’ in separate cars, King and Michelle in the Whale and Bailey in his big sedan provided by the Bureau.

“The FBI always had better cars than the Secret Service,” said King, eyeing Bailey’s vehicle.

“Yeah, but we have better boats.”

“That’s because we snatched them from DEA, which confiscated them from South American drug lords.”

“Hey, you do what you have to.” She glanced at him. “By the way, what bee got into your bonnet at the meeting? Bailey had been pretty cooperative up until this morning. It was like you deliberately tried to piss him off.”

“Sometimes that’s the only way you find out what someone’s really like.”