The Red Hunter(51)

My father used the word mopes a lot, or skulls, meaning low-level thugs, bad men with bad intentions or just the kind moron that fell into trouble because he came from trouble and didn’t know any other way around the world. Men who stole, or had the gene for violence, bad tempers, or just something addled in the head. The men in the photos were all one kind or another. Even at that age, I could see it in the deadness of their stares, in the turned-down corners of their mouths, the ragged complexions, sloped shoulders. But they were all strangers. I looked at their eyes, at their mouths. But there wasn’t any jolt of recognition.

I shook my head. “I don’t know them.”

“If you heard some voices maybe?”

“Maybe.”

He pulled a recorder out of his bag. “Normally, we’d have to do this at the station. But I didn’t want to do that to you right now—when you’re just settling in here.”

“Is it okay?” Paul asked. I nodded.

“They’re all going to say the same thing,” said Boz. “A sentence from the transcript of your initial interview: ‘You’re not going to save your family and get away with that money. Tell us where it is.’?”

I must have flinched because he bowed his head and put that big hand over mine. “I’m sorry,” he said.

The first voice was too high pitched, almost girlish. I shook my head. The next voice had a heavy New York accent; that wasn’t it either. The third voice was deeper. Maybe, but no. The fourth voice sent a bolt of electricity through me, deep, gravelly, cold.

“Zoey?”

“Maybe,” I said, feeling my breath come ragged. I couldn’t swear to it, but every nerve ending in my body was tingling, my lungs compressing.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Just a thug, a local screw-up,” he said. He fanned out the pictures again. “Look again now.”

Two of the men had blond facial hair; I eliminated them. One had too much gray. I stared at the mouth of the man who had dark stubble, at his blank dark eyes. Maybe. Maybe. I was shaking a little, from the inside out.

“I just don’t know,” I said. “Him maybe. The masks.”

“I get it,” he said. He raised a palm, gave an understanding nod. “I’m not trying to force you into saying something you’re not sure of.”

“Okay, kid,” said Paul. “Go do your homework.”

I lingered in the hallway just beyond the kitchen door. I heard Paul get up and pour Boz another cup.

“I think we’re going to have to face that she’s got nothing left to give,” said Paul. “She’s shattered, Boz.”

There was a long pause, a sigh. “Did you know he was in trouble?”

“Who?” said Paul. “Chad? What kind of trouble?”

“He was drowning in debt,” said Boz.

A spoon against the edge of a mug. A scraping chair.

“I had a sense that money was tight,” said Paul. “How much debt?”

“He was borrowing for private school. There were high credit card balances, multiple cards. He was nearing ninety thousand.”

“Christ.”

“On a cop’s salary,” Boz said.

“Okay,” said Paul. “So what? So he had debt. Lots of folks have debt.”

“A couple weeks before the murders,” said Boz. “Some money was stolen. A lot of money, a million.”

There was a leaden silence; I slid down the wall to my haunches, vibrating.

“Stolen from where?”

“Word is, from my confidential informant, that three heavily armed masked men shot two guards and absconded with a pile of cash belonging to Whitey Malone.”

“The drug dealer you guys never seem to be able to bring in.”

“That’s right,” said Boz. “My CI says that the robbers were trained, organized, and ruthless. They killed the two thugs on guard, collected their rounds and casings. They knew where the money was buried. Came and went quickly. Word is that they were cops, or maybe paramilitary. My guy was hiding, saw the whole thing go down.”

“You think the two incidents are connected.”

“The men who killed your stepbrother and his wife,” said Boz. “They were looking for money.”

“And why would they be looking at Chad’s?” asked Paul. What was there in his tone? Something I’d never heard.

One of them coughed. “I don’t know,” said Boz. “Why do you think?”

“How the hell should I know?”

More silence.

“So,” said Paul, his voice coming up an octave. “If you think it’s connected, make life a living hell for Malone and his thugs. Who else would be looking for that money but them?”

“We’ve done that,” said Boz. “We’re doing it. No one knows anything; or no one’s talking. Of the locals, these four come closest to Zoey’s physical descriptions—size, coloring, whatnot. They’re by far the worst guys we have on the streets in the area, armed robbers, drug dealers, rapists, killers—convicted felons every one.”

“So it makes sense that they’re out walking around.”

“Hey, I don’t make the laws,” said Boz. “Neither do you.”