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“Dunn,” she answered.
“Nothing,” Delferno said.
“Sure?”
“Positive. Never seen the little tyke. Was she abused?”
“Nope. She seemed to be very well cared for.”
“Foul play with the parents?”
“Could be,” Marge said. “We found blood on her pajamas. Ask around for me, Barry.”
“What do I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
“How about a weekend in Cabo San Lucas? We’ll four-wheel it down to Baja, dip our toes in the gentle warm oceano, and fish for yellowtail.”
“I don’t fish.”
“Then we can sunbathe on the white-sand beaches … no tan lines, Margie.”
“I’m involved with someone else, Barry,” Marge said.
Delferno paused. “I heard you broke up with Carroll.”
“Well, you heard wrong,” Marge lied. “You remember Carroll—six-six, two-sixty, hands as big as catchers’ mitts.”
“For chrissakes, why didn’t you tell me in the first place, Margie?”
“It slipped my mind. Kinda like your wife slipped yours a while back.”
Delferno paused, then said, “Was this whole thing a setup for revenge?”
Marge smiled. “Well, let me put it this way. If I’m ever interested, I’ll give you a call. Until then, give me and the kid a break and pass on the photo to your buddies. Maybe they’ve seen her.”
“If it means another chance at your body, Detective Dunn, I will do that. I like my women like my tales—long and tall.”
“I like my men like my good-byes—short.” She laughed and hung up the phone. Decker walked into the squad room.
“What’s so amusing?” he asked. “I could use a few giggles.”
“Delferno,” she said. “Same old lech.”
“Any luck with Sally?” inquired Decker.
“Zip. I told Barry to pass the picture along to his colleagues. I also tried the Missing Children Hotline. No one matching Sally’s description has been reported recently.”
Decker sighed. “Poor little kid. This has turned into a rotten day.”
“Worse than most?”
“Yeah, when it involves a two-year-old, it’s worse than most.”
Marge turned and faced him. “Lunch with your rape-o friend didn’t go so good?”
“Par for the course.”
“Did he do it?”
“He says no.”
“And you believe him?”
Decker paused, then nodded yes.
Marge said, “The friend in you says innocent, but the cop decrees guilty.”
“No,” Decker said. “I really don’t believe he did it.”
“Jesus,” Marge said. “What’s between you and that scumbag that’s turning your brain to mush? Did he save your life?”
“I told you no.”
“Then how do you owe him?”
“I’m not paying off a debt, Marge. I happen to think he’s innocent—”
“Oh, give me a break, Pete,” Marge said. “Fess up. Was he your illicit lover or something when all you men were dogged out in the combat zone?”
Decker laughed. “No.”
“What are you going to do for him? Bribe the judge? Burn the files?”
Decker sat down at his desk and peeled another cigarette. “I’m going to find the man who raped and cut up the hooker.”
“You already bailed the guilty party out of jail, my friend.”
“Well, I don’t think so.”
Marge leaned back in her chair, shook her head. “A seasoned guy like yourself, falling for his shit … Let me look into it. At least I’m objective.”
“Nope,” Decker said. “I’ve got my eyes wide open, Marge. I can handle it.”
“Sure you can.”
Decker rubbed his eyes and said, “We can keep bickering like this, honey, or I can do something productive like go home and get some sleep.”
“Pete!” Marge said. “You called me honey!”
“That’s ’cause you’re acting like a broad, Margie.”
Marge grinned. “No, Decker, you’re acting like a civilian.”
Decker said, “I’m going home. Beep me if something comes up with Sally. I’m going down to Hollywood Division tonight and review the case files. Try to get a handle on this hooker. You can call me there if anything comes up.”
Marge leaned back in her chair. “Colonel Dunn says that the attachments he made with his war buddies ran deeper than blood. That true with you?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, Colonel Dunn has been known to spout a lot of shit.”
Decker smiled.
“You didn’t get together with any of your buddies when you came back to civilian life?” Marge asked.
“Only once,” Decker said. “Somewhere between the second and third hour, after we rehashed all the old nightmares, I discovered I didn’t have a thing in common with any of them.”
“And that was it?”
“That was it. You know, Margie, I worked damn hard at putting it all behind me. And it’s especially hard because America has had a sudden change of heart and decided we weren’t all baby-killers. Nam vets have become the darlings of Hollywood. Indochina has great box-office appeal—all those shirtless sweaty bodies crawling through the jungle. Leeches! Gooks! Grunts going nuts! Makes for exotic drama. And the producers? They’re former hippies who now drive Mercedes instead of VW bugs. They want to talk to us, make nice. Except I remember how they treated me when I came back to the world. It don’t wash, babe.”
“Colonel Dunn was once asked to be a consultant on a Nam film.”
“What did your dad do?”
Marge blushed.
Decker said, “That bad?”
“Let’s put it this way. The screenplay was long, and Mom didn’t have to buy toilet paper for a month.”
Decker burst into laughter.
Marge asked, “So who’s this guy who you’re going the distance for?”
“Abel Atwater,” Decker said. “A hillbilly boy from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky.” Decker’s voice had taken on a nasal twang. “One of eleven chillun. His father could barely read and write, his mother was completely illiterate. Abel learned to read by sifting through mail-order catalogs. He used to entertain us by reciting Sears, Roebuck copy. Bright guy. The war messed him up.”
“A lot of rape-os are intelligent.”
“He doesn’t fit the profile. He’s not manipulative, he’s got great impulse control. He’s not the kind of person who goes around beating up hookers.”
Marge didn’t answer him.
Decker said, “All right. If I’d be brutally honest with myself, I’d say there was an off-chance that he freaked and did it. But we were in combat together for a while. I never saw him explode. Abel had a rep for being coolheaded. Type of guy the COs chose for pointman—lead-off guy in foot patrol—because he was careful and didn’t panic when things got hot.”
“Ever see him kill anybody?”
“You saw smoke, you busted some caps. Simple as that. When everything cooled off and you went in for cleanup, you’d see all these fucking bodies. Well, they didn’t drop dead from birdshit. You were shooting to kill, you killed. In answer to your question, I never saw him waste anyone for the sake of killing, and there was plenty of that going around!”
Decker stopped, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“Abel could have been something if the war hadn’t left him paralyzed. Matter of fact, he wanted to be a cop, but Charlie blew off his leg and ended that dream.”
He snapped a pencil in half.
“I’m his dream, Marge. Maybe I feel guilty because Abel had all the fantasies, and I wound up with his dream.”
The phone was ringing when Decker opened the door. He raced over to the kitchen wall, his Irish setter, Ginger, nipping at his heels, and picked up the receiver.
“Did you just walk in?” Rina asked.
“Yeah,” Decker said. “I didn’t even close the front door. Hang on a sec.”
“Sure.”
He walked through his living room, Ginger following him, barking for attention. The room was comfortable, full of furniture made in his size—an overstuffed sofa, two buckskin chairs, and a leather recliner that sat in front of a picture window. In the heat, the room seemed alive, seemed to sweat. Decker quieted the dog and shut the front door. He drew open the front-window curtains, and a white square of sinking sun fell upon his Navajo rug.
He picked up the receiver and pulled out a kitchen chair with his foot. He sat down and petted Ginger’s head.
“I’ve got all the time in the world for you now. Speak.”
“That’s why I called.” She dropped her voice a notch. “The kids are home. I can’t really talk. We’ve got to leave any moment for my brother-in-law’s birthday party.”
“You sound thrilled.”
“I’m nearly faint with excitement.”
“Don’t go, if you don’t want to.”
“I can’t get out of it. At least not without lying.”
“Then be honest. Just say, ‘I find all this family stuff boring—’”
“Boring is the least of it.”
“Troubles with the family?”
“Something like that.”
“They’re giving you a hard time because they don’t approve of me.”
“Much more than that. Hold on.”
Decker heard her quiet her younger son, Jacob. When she returned on the line, he said, “Boys want to talk to me?”
“Very much,” Rina answered. “Look, can I call you back tonight?”
