Free THE LAST BOY by ROBERT H. LIEBERMAN

the doorway. He noticed thepile of photos on the coffee table next to her. Nice-looking little kid.
    Molly had cut her hair since he had last seen her, but it looked good on her, framed her face nicely, and maturity had served her well. She still had that good bone structure. Heart-shaped face. Sensuous bow-shaped mouth. Her two front teeth were canted inward just ever so slightly. Just now she looked disheveled. Obviously she had been out, walking in this lousy weather.
    Tripoli glanced around the trailer. It was clean and neat, but it was hardly more than a notch above a dive. He knew Freeman's Floral Estates well, having spent a disproportionate amount of time here responding to domestics and drugs, harassments and thefts. He could stand in the center of the fifty-unit park and identify the residents, home after home, citing each case and its disposition. Molly's trailer sat in the rear where the smaller, more rundown trailers were tucked away. Unlike the once lavish doublewides at the entrance, these were cramped, usually overcrowded, and their occupants tended to tack on extra rooms and storage sheds. More often than not they were usually cobbled-up structures that sagged and soon rotted, leaving them looking more like ramshackle shanties than homes.
    Tripoli remained at the open door for a moment, trying to match this woman with the hell-raising high school kid he had known.
    “I can remember you and Freddy, but I can’t remember your name,” Molly admitted.
    “I’m Lou.”
    “Right. Louie Tripoli,” Molly repeated to herself with a nod. The Tripolis were a big, extended Ithaca family. There were Tripolis that owned the dry cleaners on Seneca Street, the Tripoli Paving company, the Sunoco station, the Busy Bee luncheonette on Cayuga Street, and that new Italian restaurant—whatever its name was—up in the Cayuga Mall.
    She remembered how Tripoli would pick up Freddy at the high school. He was a cop already then—which made him seem so much older—and his shiny patrol car would be waiting in front every afternoon when the kids were let out. The car with its red lights always caught her eye. It made her a little nervous and she would observe it through the corner of her eye as she sidled off with her friends, watching how Tripoli would grab Freddy and affectionately hug him in a way that men usually didn’t do—not the men she knew. Seeing that, Molly used to wonder what it was like having a brother. An older brother to look out for you.
    “I’d like to ask you some questions if I could,” he said.
    “You want to stand there in the door or do you want to come in?”
    “Well, if you don’t mind,” he said politely.
    “Help yourself,” she said.“And you might as well close the door while you’re at it.”
    “Oh, yeah, sorry.” Tripoli wiped his feet free of the clinging snow, then stepped in and closed the door. Instinctively, his eyes swept the place, taking in everything in a near-single glance. On a bookshelf there were dog-eared textbooks, children's books, and on the bottom shelf he recognized a set of that Great Books series that Time/Life was always trying to sell through the mail.“Mind if I take off my coat?” he asked.
    “Suit yourself.”
    When he had taken off his overcoat, Molly saw that he had a sport jacket and tie on. He had an easy way about him. A lot more polished than his brother Freddy. For a cop he even seemed gentle.
    “I’m sorry if I sound such a—” She shook her head.
    “Hey,” he held up his hands, “no apologies necessary. I understand. Don’t worry. We just want to get your boy back.”
    She showed him a chair, and he took it and pulled it up close to where she sat on the sofa. There was something about his eyes,perhaps their clarity and brilliance of their light green color, that held her gaze. They looked like jewels.“Do you have any ideas?” she inquired.“Anything at all? Some leads maybe? Some—”
    “Truthfully? No. But we’re starting to focus