“He’s dangerous.”

“And you think throwing a tantrum for the press is the way to neutralize him?”

I closed my lids. They felt like sandpaper sliding over my eyeballs.

“You’re right. My behavior was inexcusable.”

“Agreed. So explain why you ignored my direct order?” Tyrell sounded angrier than I’d ever heard him.

“I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “You’ve lost me.”

“Why would you brief a reporter when I requested you cease all contact with the press?”

“What reporter?”

I heard paper rustle.

“Allison Stallings. Woman had the brass ones to call my office for confirmation of information that should have been confidential. Tempe, you know that data pertaining to a child is particularly sensitive.”

“What child?”

“Anson Tyler. It’s beyond my comprehension how you could have shown so little respect for that dead little boy and his poor, grieving family.”

The sweat felt cold on my face. I had no memory of talking to Allison Stallings.

But Monday was a blank. Was it possible I’d made contact, hoping, in some boozy delusion, to clear up the misconception that Anson Tyler’s death was connected to that of Jimmy Klapec? To clarify that the Catawba River headless body was not linked to the Lake Wylie headless body? Or to the cauldron head we now knew to be Susan Redmon’s?

Or had Stallings called me? Was that why I’d shut down and shoved my mobile into a drawer?

Tyrell was still talking, his voice somber.

“-this is a serious breach. Disregarding my order. Disclosing confidential information. This behavior can’t be ignored. Action must be taken.”

I felt too weak to argue. Or to point out that Stallings was not a reporter.

“I will think long and hard what that action should be. We’ll talk soon.”

I put the phone down with one trembling hand. Finished the water. Dragged myself to the lounge and refilled the glass from the tap. Downed two aspirins. Returned to my office. Took up the Klapec report. Set it down, unable to think through the pounding in my head.

I was sitting there, doing nothing, when Slidell appeared with a grease-soaked bag of Price’s fried chicken. Normally, I’d have pounced. Not today.

“Well, don’t you look like something the dog threw up.”

“And you’re a picture of manly vitality?”

Unkind, but true. Slidell’s face was gray and a dark crescent underhung each eye.

Placing the chicken on the file cabinet, Skinny dropped into a chair opposite my desk. “Maybe you should go home and rack out.”

“It’s just a bug.”

Slidell regarded me as a cat might a sparrow. I was sure he could smell the wine sweat coating my skin.

“Yeah,” he said. “Those bugs can be a bitch. Where’s Cuervo?”

I led him to the freezer. He asked the same questions I’d asked Larabee. I relayed the information the ME had provided.

Back in my office, the fried poultry smell was overwhelming. Slidell dug in the bag and began on a drumstick. Grease trickled down his chin. It was all I could do not to gag.

“Sure you don’t want some?” Garbled.

I shook my head. Swallowed. “What is it you want me to read?”

Wiping his hands on a napkin, Slidell pulled papers from a pocket and tossed them on the blotter.

“Eddie’s notes. That’s your copy.”

I unfolded and scanned the pages.

Like the man, the handwriting was neat and precise. So was the thinking.

Rinaldi had recorded the time, location, and content of every interview he’d conducted. It appeared that those he’d questioned either lacked or withheld contact information. Ditto for surnames.

“He got only first names or street names,” I said. “Cyrus. Vince. Dagger. Cool Breeze. And no addresses or phone numbers.”

“Probably didn’t want to spook the little freaks by pushing too hard.” Slidell’s jaw muscles bunched. As though suddenly devoid of appetite, he shoved a half-eaten chicken breast into the bag and sailed it into my wastebasket. “Probably figured he could find them later if needed.”

“He used some kind of shorthand system.”

“Eddie liked to get his thoughts down quick, but he worried some scumbag defense attorney might latch on to his first impressions and make a big deal of them in court if they later turned out to be off. So’s not to provide ammo, he kept his comments cryptic, that’s what he called it. Cryptic. I thought maybe you could make something of it.”

Rinaldi had questioned a chicken hawk named Vince on Saturday. I read the entry.

JK. 9/29. LSA with RN acc. to VG. RN-PIT. CTK. TV. 10/9-10/11? CFT. 10. 500.

“Vince must be the informant Rinaldi mentioned when you talked by phone as we were leaving Cuervo’s shop. Maybe he’s VG. JK could be Jimmy Klapec. RN could be the john Vince described as looking like Rick Nelson.”

Slidell nodded.

“The numbers are probably dates,” I went on. “LSA is standard code for ‘last seen alive.’ Maybe September twenty-ninth is the last day Vince remembered seeing Klapec with this Rick Nelson character.”

“So far we’re on the same page,” Slidell said. “But Funderburke first spotted Klapec’s body on October ninth, called it in on the eleventh. If that’s what this Vince is saying, where’s Klapec from late September until early October when he gets himself dead? Assuming Funderburke and his pooch ain’t totally wacko.”

I was too busy running possibilities to answer.

“CFT would be Cabo Fish Taco,” I said. “He was meeting Vince there at ten. Maybe Vince wanted five hundred dollars for his information.”

“TV?”

“Vince had seen Rick Nelson on television?”

“PIT? CTK?”

“PIT is the airport code for Pittsburgh. Maybe those are abbreviations for cities.”

I logged onto the computer and opened Google.

“CTK is the code for Akron, Ohio,” I said.

“What’s the significance of that?”

“I don’t know.”

Slidell laced his fingers on his belly, dropped his chin, and thrust out his legs. His socks were Halloween orange.

“Eddie did some digging while waiting to go back out to NoDa,” he said. “Read his last entry.”

RN = BLA = GYE. Greensboro. 10/9. 555-7038. CTK-TV-9/27. VG, solicitation 9/28-9/29.

GYE 9/27?

I Googled the two three-letter combos.

“BLA is the airport in Barcelona, Venezuela,” I said, somewhat deflated. “GYE is in Guayaquil, Ecuador.”

“If he’s referencing cities by code, why write out Greensboro?”

It was a good point.

“The seven-digit sequence looks like a phone number,” I said lamely.

“It is.”

“Whose?”

Slidell’s answer was a shocker.

25

“I PUNCH IT UP, A VOICE TELLS ME I’VE REACHED COMMISSIONER Lingo’s office.”

“Why would Rinaldi have Lingo’s number?”

“Good question.”

I reread Rinaldi’s last entry.

VG, solicitation 9/28-9/29.

“VG could be Vince. Maybe Rinaldi learned the kid’s last name, and the fact that he was busted for solicitation.”

“Right around the time we’re guessing Klapec disappeared.”

“Why did Rinaldi think that was worth noting?”

Slidell shrugged. “Can’t hurt to pull arrest records for those dates. If nothing else, it might give us Vince’s last name. Kid’s in the wind, by the way. No one’s seen him since Saturday.”

“Where does he live?”

“His buddies ain’t busting their balls to share, but they think he was mostly sleeping on the streets.”

“Do you plan to pay Lingo a visit?”

“Later. Right now I’m retracing Eddie’s steps, seeing what I can score on this dipshit Vince.”

“Strictly regarding Klapec,” I said.

“Strictly.”

“Anything new on Asa Finney?”

“Unless I find a smoking howitzer in the guy’s shorts, he sees a judge on the bones rap, posts bond, and they kick him tomorrow.”