Linda Abruzzi was no fool-she understood that Pender’s promise to have somebody from the FBI’s resident agency in Monterey conduct the formal interview with Dr. Luka was probably bogus. But if the priority here was catching Childs, then having a Bureau legend like E. L. Pender doing your background interviews was like having Derek Jeter for a pinch hitter: you’d be a fool if you didn’t bring him off the bench. And as a law school graduate, Linda was quite familiar with the concept of plausible deniability-as was Deputy Director Steven P. McDougal, she was reasonably certain.
Besides, Linda had other fish to fry. In the same carton as the medical records-actually just the bills-she had found both Simon’s and Melissa’s birth certificates, so as soon as she got off the phone with Pender, she called Thom Davies and asked him to perform a little of his database wizardry.
A few minutes later, as she was lifting the latest forensic report from Berkeley off the fax tray-middle-aged female with a titanium screw in the left femur, a type of screw that had only been in use since 1992, the medical examiner had assured Linda-Davies called back to report that Simon Childs’s long lost mother was lost no longer.
“Good work,” Linda told him.
“Piece of piss,” said the expat Brit. “According to social security records, she’s been living at the same address in Atlantic City for over fifteen years. If you consider four hundred and fifty dollars a month living, that is.”
“Kimberly Rosen would,” said Linda grimly, glancing up to the two photographs from the Chicago PD she’d posted on her victims’ bulletin board. The first was a perky three-quarter head shot of Kim from the New Trier yearbook, class of ’95; the second was a full-face shot from the Cook County morgue, class of ’99.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Miss Delamour?”
“Not Delamore, it’s Dela-moor, comme le francais.”
“Sorry, Miss Dela-moor.”
“Aah, call me Rosie, ever’body else does.”
Plastered, Linda told herself-four o’clock in the afternoon and she’s plastered. Interviewing drunks was like fishing-you let them ramble a bit, then you reel them in, let them ramble, reel them in. “Rosie, I’m calling about your son.”
“Got no son.” The way she said it, though, it was less a denial than it was a renunciation. “Tried to explain, he didn’t wanna hear.”
“Explain what, Rosie?”
“Why.”
“Because I’m trying to get in touch with him.”
“No, why-explain why. Why I left.”
Oh, swell, thought Linda: it’s turning into an Abbott and Costello routine. “When was this, Rosie?”
“Too late. It was too late. Guess I waited too long. To call.”
Linda tried again-this could be the break they were looking for. “Rosie, I need to know when you last spoke to Simon.” Elementary psycholinguistics: “I” statements often elicited responses where questions failed.
“I dunno, this year, last year-no, wait, I remember. It was February-February fourth. Missy’s birthday. He wouldn’t lemme…said it would only…wouldn’t lemme…”
Not recent, then, thought Linda, as Rosie began sobbing on the other end of the line-so much for our big break. “February fourth of this year?”
A drawn-out, drunken wail that under other circumstances might have been almost farcical, followed by an extended silence broken by the clink of ice in a thin-walled glass. “Rosie?”
“Who is this?”
“Linda Abruzzi.” Linda decided not to identify herself as an FBI agent just yet-she didn’t want to arouse any maternal protective instincts. “I’m trying to get hold of Simon-it’s very important.”
“S’matter, he knock you up or something?”
“No, I-”
“Listen, Bootsie honey, I haven’t seen my children since nineteen fifty-one. That’s, uh-That’s almost-That’s a helluva long time. He don’t know where I am, and if he ain’t home, I don’t know where he is. So unless you get some kind of weird kick out of making old ladies cry, why don’t you let me get back to my shows and I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
“Rosie, there’s something you should-”
Click. Linda redialed, but the phone was now off the hook. Fuck it, she thought, putting down the phone and picking up the fax from the medical examiner in Berkeley again. Let somebody else tell Rosie her daughter’s dead and her son’s a monster-there must be people who get paid for that.