The Second Girl(24)

Back in the day, I used to go with McGuire and Luna, sometimes Costello. A refuge for the boys and girls at the branch. Nowadays it’s the same thing, but with close people like Costello, after a long, challenging day at work or at the end of a trial, and with old buds like McGuire and Luna for a couple of drinks and a cigar, a time to catch up.

The pill container I carry with me is for a prescription I get for chronic fatigue. A few years back, when I was on the job, I convinced a doctor that’s what I had. I was fatigued, but it was nothing I couldn’t fix myself. All I had to do was stop snorting all that blow after work and get some sleep. I never used at work.

The meds worked for a while, but then the side effects got so bad I had to wean myself off of them. The doctor kept filling the prescriptions, though, ’cause I needed the capsules and the label showing they were prescribed to me. It’s a perfect hiding spot when you’re carrying. The capsules twist open easily and hold the equivalent of a nice line. I can sniff it directly out of each half of the capsules or, like I did in the bathroom at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, make a nice pile on the inside of the pill container’s cap. I keep about fifty capsules in the container.

The new suit fits nicely. It feels good—clean. I choose to wear my light purple dress shirt without a tie, unbuttoned at the collar, and my black leather penny loafers.

Costello lives in Capitol Hill, off Pennsylvania Avenue, near 3rd and C. It’s a nice two-story connected row house, but in an area a bit like mine, which a lot of cops refer to as burglary central. She’s been lucky so far. Even if her home was broken into, she’d probably volunteer to represent the burglar that did it.

It’s almost seven thirty when I pull on to her block. When I pull up to the front of the house, she’s sitting on a step leading up to the porch, just like a kid.

I have to double-park, but she stands up and walks down when she sees me.

Such a different woman away from work. Why? I don’t know.

She’s wearing a light green long-sleeve V-neck T-shirt under a faded black lightweight leather jacket and well-fitted black jeans. She opens the passenger’s side door, steps in, and sits. Drops her small purse on the floor between her feet.

“Traffic bad?”

“It’s DC. What do you think? I’m not that late, am I?”

“Not at all. I enjoy sitting on the steps when it’s cool outside. It’s refreshing. That’s a new suit.”

“No, just dry-cleaned,” I lie, without knowing why.

“Give me the name of your dry cleaner, then.”

“It’s a little out of your way.”

I tune the car radio to 101.1 ’cause I know she likes that station. A Foo Fighters song I don’t know the name of is playing again. She turns the volume up. I sort of grin and bear it.

I head back toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Traffic is not so much a battle heading toward downtown.

When the song ends, she turns the volume down.

“I know it’s the weekend, but I was hoping you could come to the office tomorrow, early afternoon.”

“I’ve never had a problem working a weekend. You know that,” I tell her.

“Yes, I know, but this isn’t concerning anything I have lined up. There’s a couple that wants to meet you.”

“A couple of what?” I joke. “You pick up a new client?”

“No. I got a call the other day, after we spoke. The parents of the child you dropped off with me gave the family of another missing child my number. Apparently they spoke very highly of you.”

I turn to her briefly, then back to the road ahead.

“C’mon, Leslie, you know I don’t work missing persons, certainly not a case like the one that involved that little girl.”

“I’m just asking you to come and talk to them. You put me in this situation, remember?”

“Why do you have to go there? Am I gonna owe you the rest of my life because of one stupid incident?”

“Incident? Don’t belittle what you’ve done. Frankie, they have nowhere else to go. The police have nothing.”

“And what makes you think it’ll be any different with me? I don’t work that kind of shit. In fact, I hate working that kind of shit.”

“I felt bad for them. I told them I’d set it up. Just come and talk to them. For me, please.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, I know. It’s all ‘shit’ with you.”

That sounded funny coming out of her mouth ’cause she rarely cusses, except when she’s mad, and that’s rare, too.

“Just hear their story. If it’s something you can’t do, then you tell them.”

“So you make me the bad guy?”

“Just do this for me, Frankie.”

And here I thought the eight grand I’m about to dish out was gonna give me good karma. I should’ve known better; I know there’s no such thing as karma.

“Do the two girls know each other or something?”

“The same school is all, I think.”

“What about Detective Davidson? He’s the one you should be talking to, not me.”

“I gave them his number, but they insisted on hiring someone like you.”

“What time?”

“I set it for one p.m.”