Page 43 of Concealed in Death

“A couple. Maybe three.”

The way he cut his eyes away had Eve leaning in again. “How many other girls, Clip? She wasn’t the only one.”

“There was just the one more, and this one here brought her into it. Plus she wasn’t any good at it. Kinda fat girl—the hefty kind. Kept giggling, you know. I barely got off.”

“Where did these famous blow jobs take place?”

“Right there. I mean right outside the place. Kid knew how to get in and out, how to get around security. She was a steamer, like I said. And if she’s trying to come back at me for it now, that’s bullshit. She asked me, and there’s the statue.”

“Some things have no statue, Clip. Like being a revolting shit, such as yourself.”

“Hey!”

“And things like this.”

She shoved the photo of Shelby’s remains across the table.

“What the hell is that?”

“That’s Shelby Stubacker.”

“Uh-uh. This is.” He nodded toward the first photo. “That looks like some old skeleton, like for Halloween or something.”

“This is what Shelby looks like now, after being murdered, then rolled up in plastic, and hidden for fifteen years behind the wall you built.”

“You’re fucking with me, ’cause we didn’t build no walls in that place. Patched a few, painted some, but we didn’t build none. And if we did, and we didn’t, we sure as hell woulda seen that. You ask Brodie. We didn’t see nothing like that. Just ask him.”

“I didn’t say you and Brodie built the wall. I said you built it, after you killed this girl and eleven others.”

“You’re shitting me now.” His face died from sallow to pasty gray. “What the fuck? I never killed that girl. I never killed anybody. I just got a couple bjs, that’s it. Just a couple blows.”

“How many times did you go back to that building, meet this girl after they shut down that location?”

“I never went back there, not after Brodie pulled me offa the job. No reason to go back there. You can get a bj lots of places. Sometimes for free even.”

God, she thought, a genuine moron. But she pushed through. “It’s convenient though, just a couple blocks away.”

“I couldn’ta gotten in if I’da wanted. The kid’s the one came out to me. I didn’t even know they left that place, not for months until I went by it one night. It was all boarded up, and dark, and I thought, ‘Hell, the bj girl’s gone.’ I never went in, hand to God. I never saw that kid again after Brodie pulled me offa the job. I never killed nobody.”

Eve found Roarke in her office. She dumped the files on her desk, went straight to the AutoChef for coffee, then dropped down in her chair.

Waiting until she had, Roarke slid his PPC into his pocket. “Well then?”

“The best I could do was dump him in the tank on the D&D. He deserves a hell of a lot more, but I don’t think he killed those girls. He’s too damn stupid for one thing. I’m talking deeply and sincerely stupid.”

Roarke merely nodded. “Are you done here? At Central,” he continued. “Is there anything left to do you can’t do at home?”

“I guess not.”

“Then we’ll go home, and you can fill me in on the way.”

•••

He listened. She’d grown used to having someone who listened and, even better, understood without every i dotted.

“Sick fuck. He actually believes there’s nothing wrong with getting his dick sucked by a goddamn child. Nothing wrong with paying a thirteen-year-old kid a couple of brews for going down on him—and, hey, her idea.”

“But you don’t believe the sick fuck killed her, or any of them?”