“That’s probably a good idea. Don’t tell him you talked to me.”
“All right, sir, I won’t. You were saying something about the car dealer?”
“Fats Gambino. Great big fat Italian guy. He takes a lot of heat with a name like that, as you can imagine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyway-he’s a friend of mine, by the way-Fats has the Mercedes franchise and the Porsche franchise and others. Volvo, for one. And he deals in classy cars, exotic cars, is that what they call them? Rolls Royces, old Packards, stuff like that.”
“Exotic cars. Yes, sir, I understand.”
“And he also does things like buy fleets of cars from people like Hertz and Dollar and Alamo. I think they get rid of them after forty thousand miles, or a year. Something like that. Anyway, Gambino buys them up north, brings them here, cleans them up, and puts them on his used-car lot. That’s where the peeper got his car.”
“He bought it from Gambino?”
“No. He borrowed it from Gambino. It turns out this guy is in the exotic-car business. He was in town to try to sell Fats a Rolls Royce and something else, I forget what, and to try to make a deal with Gambino for a couple of Porsches.”
“I’m a little confused here, Colonel,” Olivia asked. “You’re saying this fellow drove here from someplace in a Rolls Royce, and then borrowed a Chevrolet from Mr. Gambino? ”
“No. He drove here in a great big tractor-trailer rig with three, four, really fancy cars in it. Then he borrowed the Chevy from Gambino. Told him he was going to Biloxi to play blackjack. Fats is one pissed-off guy, let me tell you…”
“There goes your mouth again,” Mrs. Richards said.
“Mr. Gambino is apparently distressed at the prospect that his name will be associated in the public’s mind with that of a chap charged by the police as a Peeping Tom. Better?”
“Sometimes, Lacey…”
“Let me see if I can get this in sequence, Colonel,” Matt said. “When the chief of police couldn’t identify the car by its VIN, he did so by tracing it to the Gambino dealership?”
“A little after ten this morning. Gambino goes to work late. When he finally came in, he said, yeah, he owned a car like that, he owned a dozen cars like that, and he had loaned one to a friend of his to go to Biloxi. Bingo. Mr. Peeper is identified. ”
“Okay. I think I’ve got it straight,” Matt said. “Thank you.”
“And now are you going to tell me why you’re interested in this guy? Interested enough to come all the way down here from Philadelphia, P.A.?”
“Colonel, you’ve been very helpful, and I’m really grateful. But I would be in deep trouble if it ever got out I told you anything that could possibly jeopardize our investigation.”
“Okay. I had twenty-seven years in uniform, and for most of that time I had a top-secret clearance. But okay.”
“Would you be satisfied if I told you, Colonel, that from what you’ve told me, the way this Peeping Tom operates is unusually like the way a man we’re looking for in connection with a homicide in Philadelphia operates?”
“Your guy is a pervert too?” Colonel Richards asked.
“Yes, Colonel,” Olivia said. “He is.”
“If our guy turns out to be your guy, will I have to read about it in the newspaper? Or will you tell me first?”
“You’ll hear about it long before it gets into the papers,” Matt said. “I promise.”
It was ten to seven when Matt pulled the rented Mustang into the Joseph Hall Criminal Justice Center in Daphne.
There was a large parking lot, and it was full. Matt wondered why, at this time of day.
“I’m getting hungry again,” he said to Olivia.
“After all you had for lunch? I can’t believe it.”
“I don’t know. I must have done something to work up an appetite.”