Free Justice Denied by J. A. Jance Page B

brought to bear on locating Sister Elaine Manning. It was probably better if I just sat back and let them do the heavy lifting. There would be plenty of time for me to talk to her once she was found.
    “Tell me about Pastor Mark,” I said. “What’s his deal?”
    “That would be Brother Mark or Pastor Mark, depending on who you talk to,” Kendall said. “Last name’s Granger. Former druggie. Did a fifteen-year stretch for second-degree murder. Been out for the past five years. Another unlikely prospect for a Goody Two-shoes award, but we haven’t been able to find anything new on him, either. Everybody at King Street seems hell-bent on keeping their noses clean—no drugs, no booze, no illegal activities. They don’t even allow cigarettes.”
    “They just aren’t making ex-cons the way they used to,” I said.
    “I guess not,” Jackson agreed with a laugh.
    I started to ask him if he had any details on the payout Tompkins had received from the state. I stopped myself just in time. If my cover was that Ross Connors was worried about it, I’d better have the details of that at my fingertips. And I jotted a note to myself to make inquiries about the settlement on my own.
    “So there’s nothing on the street about who might have done this?” I asked.
    “So far not a word,” Jackson replied, “and believe me, we’ve been asking.”
    “What about forensics?” I asked.
    “A thirty-eight,” Jackson said. “We ran the bullet through NIBIN. Nothing turned up.”
    NIBIN is the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, which keeps track of bullets the same way AFIS (the Automated Fingerprint Identification System) keeps track of fingerprints. The fact that the bullet used to kill LaShawn Tompkins hadn’t shown up in the database meant that the weapon was clean—that it hadn’t been used in any other crime prior to his murder. Now that it had been entered into the system, however, if it was used again, it would be noticed. When or if that happened, it would make the killer easier to trace. Right now, though, it didn’t do us any good.
    “So you’ll keep me in the loop on this one?” I suggested.
    Jackson laughed. “Unofficially in the loop, that is.”
    “Yes.”
    “Only if you do the same,” he returned. “Quid quo pro, whatever. If you dredge something up, I want to hear about it, too.”
    “Fair enough,” I said.
    I put down the phone, leaned back in the recliner, and closedmy eyes. I may even have drifted off for a second or two before the phone rang, startling me awake if not to full consciousness.
    “How come we have to stay in a hotel?” my daughter demanded. “Why can’t we stay with you? Is it because of her? ”
    And there, in a nutshell, is why men find women so baffling—daughters included. Or perhaps, daughters especially.
    I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t always the best of fathers when Scott and Kelly were kids, but in the years since I stopped drinking I’ve gone to great lengths to undo as much of that damage as possible. Maybe I’ve made more progress with Scott than I have with Kelly. Still, I’ve done my level best, and I thought we were doing fine. The previous weekend, when Mel and I had been down in Ashland, she and Kelly seemed to get along fine—at least fine as far as I could see. I remembered Kelly even teasing Mel about whether or not we were going to get married. Now Kelly uttered the word her in regard to Mel with such vivid contempt that it caught me by surprise. Between Sunday morning and Tuesday afternoon, what could possibly have changed?
    “I just talked to Mel,” Kelly continued. “She told me we’ll be staying at Homewood Suites and gave me the confirmation number.”
    I still didn’t get it. My first thought was that since Kelly and Jeremy live on a very tight budget, maybe she was worried about having to pay a hotel bill.
    “I’m paying for the room,” I said, trying to fight my way out of a mess not of my own making.