“Jimmy and Vince are friends, you know, both being on their own.” She looked from me to Slidell and back. “Jimmy’s nice. Shy, you know? And kind of sweet.”

“Jimmy Klapec is dead,” I said.

The heavily mascaraed eyes went wide.

“He was murdered.”

Wider.

“When was the last time you saw Jimmy Klapec?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe last summer. I only met him once or twice when he came into the bar with Vince.”

Slidell began thumbing pages over the top of his spiral. “Vince was busted on September twenty-eighth, you pried him loose on the twenty-ninth. He mention seeing Klapec around that time?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Impatient.

“The night Vince got out we stayed here, caught some TV and ordered a pizza. Cheap bastard. That’s pretty much all we ever did. Problem is, my granny was having her nightmares, so I ended up mostly upstairs. Vince was watching some rock-and-roll thing. Hold on.”

Shooting to her feet, Pinder disappeared through a doorway. In seconds we heard banging, then, “Poppy! Peony! I’m gonna whip your butts.”

Seconds later, Pinder returned and dropped into her chair.

“Go on,” Slidell said.

Pinder looked blank.

“You’re nursing Granny and Vince’s catching some tube.”

“Oh, right. One time I’m passing through the room he’s pointing his beer at the TV, laughing and hooting. I ask, What’s so funny? He says, Looks just like him. I say, Who? He says, Friend of Jimmy’s. I say, Where is Jimmy, anyway? He says, Jimmy got into it with this dude and took off. I say, When? He says, Earlier that night. Then the asshole cracks up again. Vince is moody. I was glad he was happy. And I figured he was probably drunk.”

“Who was he pointing at?”

“Some dork in a hat.”

“Vince ever mention someone looked like Rick Nelson?” Slidell asked.

“Who?”

“A singer.”

“Sounds like him. Jerk was always comparing people to movie stars and stuff. He once said his former girlfriend looked like Pamela Anderson.” Pinder snorted. “In his dreams.”

Slidell looked at me. I shook my head, meaning I had no other questions.

Slidell handed Pinder a card. “You see Vince, you give us a call, eh?”

Pinder shrugged.

Back in the Taurus, Slidell said, “Not the brightest bulb in the marquis.”

I asked, “Got Rinaldi’s notes?”

Slidell dug the photocopies from a grease-stained canvas bag on the backseat. As he drove, I reviewed what his partner had written.

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

“Pinder’s story supports our take on this. According to VG, presumably Vince Gunther, JK, presumably Jimmy Klapec, was last seen alive with RN, presumably Rick Nelson, on September twenty-ninth. RN’s probably the violent john that Gunther quit doing.”

“The guy Klapec fought with,” Slidell said.

“The guy who killed him.”

“And that guy’s Asa Finney. Rick Nelson with pits.”

I still wasn’t totally convinced.

“Did you check out CTK?” I asked.

“Yeah. And PIT. No record of Finney or Klapec flying to Akron or Pittsburgh any time in the last thirty days.”

I looked at Rinaldi’s final entry.

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

GYE 9/27?

“Vince Gunther was arrested for solicitation on September twenty-eighth, spent the night in jail until Pinder arranged for his release the following day. OK. That part’s clear.”

“When I find the little greaseball he’ll wish his ass never left the slammer.”

Slidell made a hard right. I braced on the dash, then refocused on the notes.

Boyce Lingo’s phone number.

“Glenn Evans says Rinaldi never called his boss. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. What’s important is Rinaldi recorded Lingo’s number. Why?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But I do know one thing. I’m gonna put a car on Miss April Pinder.”

“You think she might be hiding Gunther?”

“A little surveillance never hurts.”

I went back to the notes.

“Greensboro. Evans said he and Lingo were in Greensboro on October ninth. Was that what interested Rinaldi? And if so, why?”

Suddenly, a line connected two dots.

30

“RN EQUALS BLA EQUALS GYE.” I TWISTED IN MY SEAT, EXCITED. “BLA. Boyce Lingo Assistant. GYE. Glenn Evans. That’s got to be it.”

Slidell flicked his eyes to me, back to the road.

“Check out Evans’s middle name,” I said. “I’ll bet the farm it begins with a Y.”

We rode in silence as Slidell merged onto I-277 to loop southeast around uptown.

I tried to reach out to my subconscious. Why the subliminal alert while Slidell was questioning Evans?

Nothing.

“So what’s Lingo’s connection? Was Eddie looking at him as a suspect? What would Lingo’s motive be?”

“Sex. Drugs. Money. Jealousy. Betrayal. Envy. Take your pick. Most murders result from one on the menu.”

There was another long stretch while Slidell considered that.

“What about the artwork on Klapec’s chest and belly?”

I had no explanation for that.

“And one other minor detail. Evans says he and Lingo were in Greensboro when Klapec got capped.”

Or that.

It was 4:40 when Slidell dropped me at my Mazda. Traffic was brutal driving to UNCC. By the time I arrived at the optoelectronics center, Ireland had gone. As promised, she’d left hard copy of her SEM scans.

Wanting to get home before celebrating another birthday, I grabbed the envelope and bolted straight back to my car.

I was on Queens Road when Slidell rang my mobile.

“Glenn Yardley Evans.”

“I knew it.”

“Old Glenn and I are about to have another encounter.”

“I’ve got SEM magnifications of the bone I took from Jimmy Klapec’s femur.”

“Uh-huh.” Slidell sounded decidedly unenthusiastic.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now I talk to Evans and you look at your… whatever the hell it is you just got. We swap stories in the morning.”

My thumb moved to DISCONNECT.

“And, doc.”

I waited.

“Watch your back.”

Knowing the larder was empty, I stopped and loaded up at the Harris Teeter supermarket on Providence Road.

It was dark when I pulled in at Sharon Hall, too late for sunset, too early for moon-or starlight. Entering the grounds was like plunging into a black hole. The ancient oaks loomed like silent black giants guarding the dark swath of drive.

Circling behind the main house, I was surprised to see a red and blue glow pulsating from the direction of the Annex.

I cracked my window.

And heard a recognizable staticky sputter.

My scalp tightened and my palms went moist on the wheel. Killing the headlights, I crept forward far enough to peek around the corner.

A CMPD cruiser was angled toward my condo, doors open, radio crackling, dual beams lighting two cops and a man.

Though my view was partly obscured by bushes and the edge of the coach house, I could see that the man stood with arms raised, palms flat to one wall of the Annex. While one cop frisked him, the other asked questions.

The man was tall and lean and wore a leather jacket and jeans. Though his back was to me, there was something familiar about him.

As I watched, the frisking cop found and examined a wallet. The man spoke. The cop pulled something from inside the man’s jacket.

I couldn’t stand it. Knowing I should stay back, I made the turn and rolled closer.

Porch light haloed the man’s hair. Sandy. Not long, not short.

Something prickly blossomed in my chest.

Impossible.

The frisking cop passed an object to the questioning cop. Words were exchanged. Body language relaxed. It was obvious tension was easing.