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moment he had mentioned the night her brother had died her eyes had gone
blank and her body had stiffened. Instinct told him she had seen or
heard something, but her memory of that night was already bluffed. It
was peopled with monsters and snarling shadows.
He didn't care to admit that breaking the case depended on a terrified
six-year-old whose memory of that night, according to the psychologists
he'd interviewed, might never return.
There was still the pizza man, Lou thought grimly. It had taken him two
days to locate the right shop and the clerk who'd been working the
graveyard s.h.i.+ft. He'd remembered the order for fifty pizzas, and had
considered it a joke. But he'd also remembered the name of the person
who'd placed the order.
Tom Fletcher, a session musician who played both alto and tenor sax, had
had a yen for pizza that night. It had taken weeks to track him
down, and weeks more to put through the paperwork to bring the musician
back from his gig in Jamaica.
Lou preferred pinning his hopes there. Whoever had been in Darren's
room hadn't come back down the main stairs or climbed out of the window.
That left the kitchen stairs where Tom Fletcher had been trying to
convince the night clerk to deliver fifty pizzas with everything.
"Hey, Dad, that was the best." Michael dragged his feet on the sidewalk
to give himself a few more moments. He pulled open the door of his
father's '68 Chevelle, craning his neck to look at the upper windows of
the building at his back. "The guys are going to go nuts when I tell
them. It's okay to tell them now, right? Everybody knows you've got
the case."
"Yeah." Lou pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and
forefinger. He wasn't sure if the headache had been brought on by
tension or the furious pulse of music. "Everybody knows." He'd burrowed
his way through a trio of press conferences.
"How come they got all those security guards?" Michael wanted to kncrw.
"What guards?"
"Those." As his father settled into the driver's seat, Michael pointed
to the four dark-suited, broad-shouldered men near the entrance of the
building.
"How do you know they're guards?"
"Come on." Michael rolled his eyes. "You can always tell cops. Even
rent-a-cops."
Lou wasn't sure if he should wince or laugh. He wondered how his
captain would feel if he knew the average eleven-year-old could make an
undercover cop. "Th keep people from ha.s.sling them, maybe hurting them.
And the little girl," Lou added. "Someone might try to kidnap her."
"Jeez. You mean they've got to have guards all the time?"
"Yes."
"b.u.mmer," Michael murmured sincerely, no longer sure he wanted to pursue
the idea of becoming a rock star. "I'd hate to have people watching me
all the time. I mean, how could you have any secrets?"
"It's tough."
As his father pulled away from the curb, Michael cast one last look over
his shoulder. "Can we go to McDonald's?"
