Free Don't Look Now by Richard Montanari Page B

afraid it’s the only way,’ Paris said. ‘This psycho is cruising the bars and that means we cruise with him.’
    Paris placed the sketch of the suspect as described by the night clerk of the Quality Inn on to the easel. The oversized Irish walking-hat effectively hid the upper half of the man’s face, and the rest was taken up by tinted glasses and a big mustache. The man’s nose was straight, his jawline square.
    ‘That’s our boy?’ Tommy asked.
    ‘That’s him,’ Paris said. ‘White male, thirty, over six feet. Checked into the rooms at both the Quality Inn and the Red Valley Inn. Paid cash for both, of course.’ Paris distributed the files to each of the detectives. ‘Looks like we’re going to be spending some time at the meat-markets.’
    ‘Could be worse,’ Tommy said. ‘I saw that movie
Cruising
, you know.’ He was referencing the 1980 film where Al Pacino goes undercover into the gay leather culture.
    ‘What, like heteros don’t get vicious?’ said the politically correct Bobby Dietricht.
    Tommy turned slowly and glared at Dietricht. The feud between these two was three months running already, and everybody in the room rolled their eyes because they knew exactly what was coming next. ‘I’m sorry. Did you take that
personally
, Bobby? Because if you did, I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you.’
    ‘Fuck you, Raposo.’
    ‘Right here?’ Tommy said, sliding off the desk. ‘You want me to bend over and drop my pants right here? Is that what you’re asking me to do?’
    Greg Ebersole placed a hand on Dietricht’s arm. ‘Guys.’
    ‘You know,’ Dietricht said. ‘You people and your—’
    ‘
What
?’ Tommy yelled as he walked straight into the chest of Greg Ebersole, who stood about four inches shorter than Tommy’s six-two frame. ‘You
people
?’
    ‘You’re so goddamn typical, Raposo.’
    ‘I’m so—’
    ‘
Shut the fuck up!
’
    The shout came from the back of the room. Tommy and Dietricht nearly jumped at the volume and force of the command. They turned, like two third-graders caught misbehaving on the playground, and looked at Cyndy Taggart.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, stirring a cup of coffee with her pen. ‘We have a job to do.’ She sat down and crossed her legs. ‘Let’s play nice until we catch this motherfucker, okay?’
    Because of the undercover assignments on the case, Randall Elliott conducted the news conference while the five detectives remained out of sight. Paris and Cyndy Taggart, they had determined, would be going undercover on the east side; Tommy, Ebersole and Dietricht would all team up with female vice-officers and cover the south side, the west side and downtown respectively.
    Paris put his homework in his briefcase – including photographs of all three crime scenes and the autopsy protocols for the first two victims – and grabbed his coat. He was wrestling with whether or not to stop at the Caprice for a quick one before heading home, when his phone rang, deciding for him.
    ‘Homicide, Paris.’
    ‘Officer Paris?’
    It was a woman, maybe in her mid-twenties by the sound of her voice. And she was nervous. ‘
Detective
Paris,’ he said, correcting her. ‘What can I do for you?’
    ‘I was calling about the story in the
Plain Dealer
?’
    She made it sound like a question. They all did. Paris had spoken to hundreds of people like her in his years on the force, people who are afraid to get involved. They figured that if it all sounded like a question, the answer might be: No. No, you aren’t going to die. No, you’re not going to jail.
    ‘This morning’s
Plain Dealer
?’
    ‘Yes. You see, I met this man.’
    Paris waited a few beats, sat down, prompted her again. ‘And?’
    Deep breath. ‘I think he might be the guy you’re looking for.’
    Paris sat up a little straighter. ‘What makes you think so?’
    ‘Well, I can’t really talk about it on this phone. I’m at work.’
    ‘Were you harmed in any way?’
    ‘No,’ she