Part 33 (2/2)
”I see,” Frank said.
”I can put a motorcycle in it.” The kid zipped off, and Frank wasted a moment hoping that the quest for a motorcycle suitable for demonstration would keep the tot busy for a while, but he returned before Sanchez could finish asking, ”Had you seen her lately?”
”Yes. Isn't that why you're here?”
The baby screeched until Sonia relented and set her-her? the diaper had pink flowers on it, so probably-on the living room floor. The baby immediately made a beeline back to the linoleum and her mother.
”Yes,” the woman began. ”She came to see me at work, last week. I'd wonder from time to time what happened to her, because she seemed a little wild to me back then.”
”It's a spider motorcycle,” Brent said.
Frank didn't recognize the term, until he glanced at the toy to see the Spider-Man logo on it. ”That's nice.”
The kid squinted at him. That's nice was not something men said, not even to a five-year-old. ”Do you have any motorcycles?”
”Brent,” his mother said, ”Mommy is talking. Don't interrupt.”
The boy shared a murderous look with his truck, then flounced off, nearly stepping on his baby sister on the way out. The sister reached Sonia, who plucked her up for deposit in a playpen in the living room. Brent beat her back to the table, however, with a plastic SpongeBob doll.
”He talks,” the boy announced.
Great, Frank thought. Another country heard from. ”Wild how, Sonia?”
”The drugs. The things she did with boys. The things she did with boys to pay for the drugs. I chalked some of it up to bravado, but most of it-most of it she didn't seem to be proud of. She wasn't bragging, just shooting the breeze, which struck me as sadder than any sob story she could have given me.”
Brent pushed a b.u.t.ton, and the toy uttered a comment Frank couldn't quite catch, not that he tried very hard. ”Why did Kim come to see you last week?”
The baby began to protest.
”Just a visit, she said at first. She had been kicking around downtown, thought she'd come in and say hi.”
The cops waited. SpongeBob made another p.r.o.nouncement as Brent walked his bendy little feet across the table, nudging Frank's elbow.
”She seemed good. Relatively healthy; her eyes were clear. But she had that old look.”
”Look?” Sanchez said, pressing.
”You can talk to him,” Brent reminded Frank.
The baby wailed.
”Brent. Show SpongeBob to Bethie. Try to make her laugh. Now,” she added in one of those iron tones that all mothers eventually learn. It worked on Brent. It would have worked on Frank if he'd thought she meant him.
With toys and babies momentarily quieted, Sonia Kettle made the most of her break. ”Like she was up to something. When we worked together, I could always tell when she'd be about to hit me up for cigarettes or money or to help her cover up a long lunch hour. She'd get this glinting look in her eyes, suddenly be real interested in everything about you. And when she showed up last week, I wanted to think she'd grown up, got her life together, and that maybe I'd helped with that process in some small way. But she hadn't.”
”What makes you say that?”
”Same thing, different day. She chatted, made a fuss over pictures of the kids, then asked for a favor. She wanted to see blueprints from a building. That's not a big deal, really-I mean they're not exactly state secrets and she did used to work there....”
Frank nodded encouragingly. He didn't know if Sonia had violated some code, but knew he didn't care if she did.
”The problem was, they were from 1935.”
”Forty-nine fifty Pullman?”
For the first time Sonia Kettle looked surprised. ”Yeah. How'd you know?”
”Long story. Did she say why?”
”She said her grandfather used to own it, and they were going to tear it down, and she wanted to see what it had looked like. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but Kim would go off on tangents like that. She'd get obsessed about a movie or a car or a breed of dog and talk about nothing else for a few days, then lose interest.”
”So you didn't get them out for her?”
”No, I did. I figured she'd nag me until she got what she wanted-same old Kim. She'd gotten off the drugs, but nothing else had changed.” She gave an abrupt shrug. ”Maybe I'm being mean. Anyway, we went down to bas.e.m.e.nt storage and dug through the drawers until I found what she wanted. Got dust all over a new blouse, too.”
”The blueprints?” Frank asked as the baby started up in the other room. ”We requested those and were told it would take a week because they had to come from remote storage, or something along those lines.”
The young woman nodded. ”Requests are processed in the order they're received. Unless you get, like, the mayor to call us and say it's an emergency. Otherwise it goes into the queue with the others.”
Frank wished he'd known that. But the fresh bodies turning up had taken priority over James Miller's murder for everyone except Theresa. ”So you-”
”I did her a favor, yeah. Isn't every job like that?” she asked with a hint of defensiveness. ”Don't you fix people's parking tickets?”
”I try,” Frank said to soothe her. ”Sometimes. Did anything in particular interest Kim about the blueprints? Did she just want the general layout?”
”I don't know. She seemed real interested in them, that's for sure, but I couldn't tell you why.”
”Did you make her a copy of it?”
”No! You need the oversize copy machine to do that, and that sort of thing the boss will get mad about. Kim didn't even ask. She just wrote down some of the information, like the date and the name of the architect.” The baby wailed again, not loudly.
”Anything else?”
”Yeah, but I didn't pay attention. By that point I wanted to get her out of there and back to work before the boss came looking for me.”
”Mommy! Bethie threw up!”
”Excuse me.” Sonia left the table and went into the living room. Sanchez leaned over the oak surface. ”What do you think? Kim knows it's her grandfather's body in that building-”
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