He hit the steering wheel over and over, still cussing.I’ll have to come back. Damn it.Meanwhile he searched for a coffee shop, pulled in, using their Wi-Fi to connect with Nico.Give me until Monday 5:00 p.m. to get some cash.
Chapter 18
Friday Late Afternoon
It was stillFriday, another busy day, but, so far, Kate hadn’t accomplished anything. She got the canvassing back from the entire neighborhood and everybody except for one person said the same thing—that they hadn’t seen Ken. But one person reported seeing him walking in his property, using a cell phone. With the name of the person and the address, she quickly bolted to her feet and told Rodney, “I’ll go talk to the one person who saw our pedophile.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m working with Forensics on that street.”
“I’ll be back,” she said. She raced outside, picked up a pretzel from the vendor on the corner of the block, grabbed a coffee, and headed to her car, taking off to Ken’s place. She knocked on the neighbor’s door and waited, in her hand. A little old lady opened the door and stared up at her in worry.
Kate smiled. “Hello, I’m Detective Morgan,” she said. “I understand that you saw one of your neighbors, Ken, out walking in his yard.”
The little old lady nodded and tilted her head, sending bubbled lavender-colored hair in all directions. “I did talk to that one young gentleman about Ken,” she said, with a smile. “A nice young cop.”
“How often did you see Ken?” Kate asked, in a conversational tone. The problem with witnesses is that you never knew what they knew, and they didn’t know themselves, until they were given the right questions in order to pry out the information.
“I used to see him a fair bit,” she said, “but less and less as time went by.”
“Do you know how long he’s lived here?”
“Quite a while,” she said. “Maybe ten years.”
“And he doesn’t work?”
“Well, I imagine you know more about him than I do,” she said, with a trilling laugh.
“Yes,” Kate said, with a half laugh. “He doesn’t appear to have been working constructively for the last five years.”
“No. I’m sure he told me at one point in time that he was looking after his sister’s kids.”
“Did you ever see him with children?”
“At the odd times,” she said, “but not for quite a few years now.”
“You know that he hasn’t been out of prison for all that long?”
The little old lady’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “I guess maybe that’s why I haven’t seen him all that often recently.”
“He served four years,” she said.
“But he’s been home for several weeks now at least, if not several months,” the lady protested.
“Exactly,” she said. “He’s been home at least six months, I think.”
The old lady looked relieved. “For a moment there, I thought I was losing it.”
“No. He was away but has been back for some time.”
“And did you say what was he in for?”
Kate looked around, as if checking to see if anybody was close by. “He was a pedophile,” she said quietly.
The little old lady’s face blanched. “Oh no, please don’t tell me that he hurt those little children.”
“I’m not sure which little children you mean,” she said, “but I’m afraid it’s all too possible. He didn’t have a sister.”
The little old lady immediately brought her hands to her chest and started patting herself, as if trying to recover from a shock.