'I'll run a tab for you.' And I disconnected.
Truth is, I missed Morelli. He was sexy and smart and his house felt homey. His house didn't have the aphrodisiac shower gel, but it had Bob. I really missed Bob. Go figure that one. Okay, so I had to carry his poop in a plastic bag back to the house. It didn't seem like such a big deal anymore.
I left the lot and cruised through town. I turned onto Hamilton, drove past the office, and parked on a side street. Then I entered the office through the back door.
Connie looked up from her computer when I walked in. 'Using the back door again?'
`I'm trying to decrease my visibility.'
'Good call.'
Vinnie rarely came in on a Saturday, and Lula was always late. I poured myself a cup of coffee, and took a seat across from Connie.
'Any new shootings, firebombings, rumors of my imminent death?'
'Nothing new.' Connie slid the mouse across the mouse pad and clicked. `I'we got three new skips. I'm printing out the search results for you now. The original paperwork is somewhere in the mess of unfiled documents stacked on the cabinets.'
Oh boy. Lula hadn't filed anything in so long there were more files on top of the cabinets than there were in the drawers.
'We have to go through those stacks,' Connie said, coming out of her chair. 'And we might as well file them while we search. We're looking for Anton Ward, Shoshanna Brown, and Jamil Rodriguez.'
An hour later, we had the documentation for all three skips, and we'd filed more than half of the outstanding cases.
The front door crashed open, and Lula marched in. 'What's going on here?' she asked. 'I miss anything?'
Connie and I gave Lula a cold ten-second stare.
'Yeah?' Lula asked.
'We just spent an hour doing your filing so we could find the paperwork on three new skips,' Connie said.
'You didn't have to do that,' Lula said. 'I got a system.'
'You weren't here,' Connie said. 'Where the hell were you? You were supposed to be here at nine.'
I'm never here at nine on Saturdays. I'm always late on
Saturdays. Everybody knows that.' Lula poured herself a cup of coffee. 'Did you hear the news? I was listening to the radio on the way in and they said the Red Devil robbed the deli-mart o
n
Commerce Street this morning. And he shot the clerk ten times in the head. That's a lot of times to get shot in the head.'
The Red Devil again. Getting more bold. More ruthless. It seemed like years had passed since my Escape got fried and Eddie got shot. I dropped into my seat at the desk and added Connie's search information to the three files.
Shoshanna Brown was wanted for possession. She was a repeater. I'd picked Shoshanna up for priors, and I knew she wouldn't be hard to find. Probably she didn't have a ride to court.
Jamil Rodriguez was caught shoplifting a variety of electronics from Circuit City. When they searched him they found a loaded Glock, a box cutter, a sandwich bag filled with Ecstasy, and a human thumb in a sealed vial of formaldehyde. He claimed to have no knowledge of the thumb.
Anton Ward had a high bond. He'd gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and had stabbed her repeatedly with a steak knife. The girlfriend had lived, but she wasn't happy with Anton. Anton had made bail but had failed to show for court. He was nineteen with no priors. Or at least no priors as an adult. Vinnie had a notation on
Ward's bond document that there were gang tattoos on Wards arm.
One of the tattoos was a paw print accompanied by the letters CSS.
Ward was a Comstock Street Slayer.
I paged through the file, looking for the photo. The first photo was a profile. The second was full on. I saw the second photo and froze. Anton Ward was the Red Devil.