He dropped back onto the bed and groaned. He needed sleep. He had to be rested up for whatever the hell she had planned for him. As he slowly drifted off to sleep, he was once again assailed by the same nightmares that had driven him to the police station the first time.
Chapter 19
First Monday in July, Morning
Kate wasn’t atall surprised when she got a text message this morning on her phone, saying that Simon had docked but wasn’t coming in for several hours, as he needed a shower and a change of clothes.
One o’clock, she sent back and didn’t get a response. It was Monday, after all, but then she didn’t seem to know the difference. She worked most of the time and didn’t have a partner or a family. By the time one o’clock rolled around, she stepped out of the station to wait for him, just in time to catch him arriving.
He glared at her. “Why the hell did I have to come in right now?”
“Because,” she said and led the way back to her desk. She motioned at the chair and then handed him a bunch of photos.
He stared at the old pictures, some just printed on regular paper. “What are these?”
“That’s the dead pedophile in the morgue,” she said. “The one with the safe that you helped to open.”
He shrugged and handed them back. “I don’t know who he is,” he said. She handed him a more recent photo.
He winced. “Is this a mug shot?”
“It is. This is one”—she splayed out another one on top—“from a couple months ago.”
He handed it back and then stopped, snatched it back from her hand again. He frowned. “I’ve seen him down at a restaurant,” he said. “At Stevie’s. A burger joint downtown.”
“A favorite hangout of his apparently,” she said. “And we were wondering—because we found out he’d been there that evening before his death—if you’d been around at the same time.”
He looked up at her and said, “That was the night of that local poker game with the cheater.”
“Right,” she said. “But did you go to Stevie’s?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t.”
“Nobody there has cameras,” she said sadly. “It would be nice if we had video cameras of the patrons, so we saw if he talked to anybody.”
“Guys like that don’t have to talk to anybody,” he said, his voice still harsh. “They live in their own world.”
“Look here,” she said, handing him the third photo, with the two men talking.
Simon turned the photo ever-so-slightly and frowned.
“Do you know him?”
“Not sure,” he said. He held it out at arm’s length and then shrugged. “It’s a really shitty photo.”
“We’re working on that,” she said. “I was just wondering if you knew him. They appear to be quite friendly.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They don’t generally have anything to do with anybody in their own field.”
“That’s true,… unless they are part of the ring,” she said. “And that’s the theory I’m operating on.”
“There’s probably what? One hundred and fifty, two hundred released pedophiles in the city? Or maybe a couple thousand.”
“I know,” she said. “We’ve been keeping an eye on a bunch of them.”
“No way to really check unless you get into their group chat.”
“We’re doing that too,” she said. “But, so far, nothing.” Just then, her phone rang. She glanced down and answered it. “You got into his laptop? Ah, now that’s exactly what I want to hear,” she said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She stood up, looked at Simon, and said, “You can go now.”