Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(74)

The mothers never think that, Rocky thinks sadly.

“Her name’s Ginny—Virginia—Masters, and her son’s name is Robbie. Robert Alan Masters. Can you help her out? Maybe just talk to her?”

“Why are you asking us? We’re NYPD,” Murph points out. “Why not—”

“Because you’re detectives, and the cops she’s talked to won’t help her. They wouldn’t even let her fill out a missing persons report right away because they said he don’t qualify.”

“Where does your cousin live?” Rocky asks.

“Over in Monticello.”

“Sorry,” Murph tells her, “that’s not in our jurisdiction.”

“This ain’t, either,” she points out with a stubborn gleam in her eye.

Before they can respond, two men appear in the doorway. One is the prison official who was sent to summon Charles Nowak from his post; the other, a tall, gaunt man in a guard’s uniform, is presumably Nowak himself.

“Detective Manzillo, Detective Murphy, this is Chuck Nowak.” He shoots a pointed look at the woman still waiting for help with her cousin’s missing son. She grumbles something under her breath and leaves the room, followed, moments later, by the official.

Rocky puts her and the kid out of his head, sets the coffee cup aside, and reaches for his pencil and notebook.

“We just want to ask you some questions about a case we’re investigating, Officer Nowak,” Rocky tells him, settling a pair of reading glasses on the end of his nose. “I understand that you recently lost your wife. I’m very sorry.”

Murph echoes the sentiment.

The widowed prison guard responds to their condolences and a few preliminary questions in bleak, monosyllabic monotones.

Rocky scribbles “17 years” on the notebook—the amount of time Nowak says he’s been working here at the prison—and clears his throat, preparing to ask a question whose answer he anticipates as being less definitive.

Murph voices it before he can, and much more bluntly. “Who do you think was responsible for the death of your wife, Officer Nowak?”

The man visibly winces at that phrase—“death of your wife”—as though the loss is still too fresh to bear. His hands clench so tightly on the table that his knuckles are mottled white knobs.

“I don’t know who did it.” Nowak finally lifts his dark gaze to meet Murph’s head-on. “Do you?”

“The homicide squad hasn’t had any leads that I’m aware of.” Murph looks at Rocky, who nods in agreement.

“But you have an idea?” Nowak’s questioning glance sweeps from Murph to Rocky. Neither of them answers that, of course.

“Tell us about Jerry Thompson,” Rocky suggests, and Nowak’s dark eyebrows rise.

“What about him? He’s dead.”

“Killed himself by sipping cleaning fluid, right?”

Nowak nods and drops his eyes again, but not before Rocky glimpses something unsettling in his expression.

Murph goes on, “Why do you think he did that?”

“Why did he kill himself, you mean? Who the hell knows?”

And who the hell cares? The second question goes unspoken, but Rocky hears it loud and clear in Nowak’s tone.

The guy is wondering why they’re wasting their time and his on a waste-case inmate whose life—and death—can’t possibly compare to his beloved wife, Cora’s.

“Did he say anything before he died that . . . raised any red flags?” Murph asks.

“About what? That he was going to kill himself?” At Murph’s nod, Nowak says, “Nope.”

“What about the other guys? Did he talk to them?”

“You mean, did he tell them what he was planning to do?” Nowak shrugs. “I have no idea.”

Again, the peculiar, fleeting expression in his eye, and a slight hesitation in his voice.

Intrigued, Rocky says, “Jerry Thompson didn’t have access to cleaning fluid, Officer Nowak. Someone got it for him.”

“What, you think I did that?”

“I think you have some idea who might have.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Ignoring that question, Rocky asks, “Who was it, Officer Nowak?”

“I don’t know.”

Oh yes, you do.

“All right, then . . . who do you think it might have been?”

Something seems to shift in Nowak’s brain, and he surprises Rocky by saying simply, “Doobie Jones.”

“Doobie?” Rocky echoes, writing it down.

“Jones. Right. Doobie—that’s what they all call him.”

“What’s he in for?”

“Rape. Assault. Murder,” Nowak intones. “He had the cell right next to Thompson’s, and he worked in janitorial. He could have gotten his hands on it, no problem.”

“On the cleaning fluid.”

“Right.” Nowak shrugs.

“Why would he do that? Were they friends?”

“They talked.”

“What about?” Murph asks.

“I don’t know. A lot of things.”

“He talk to anyone else?”

“Probably.”

We’re going to talk to every inmate here who had regular contact with Jerry Thompson, Rocky silently tells Murph, who nods before posing the next question to Nowak: