Free Compromised by Lawrence Kelter Page B

of time. This one’s on you, Lisa Chalice. You’re the one who made her the nut job she is today.”
    “Bah. Whatever. So what’s this weird thing you want to tell me about? You’ve got a strange expression on your face.”
    Lido sucked down another swig of suds. “So this guy, the girl’s father, he weirded out on me during the interview, got real tense and basically kicked me out of his apartment. I was exploring the premise of the crime being a revenge killing and—”
    “Sounds like someone has a troubled conscience. Is that why you were so late, because you checked him out?”
    Lido nodded. “He was the victim in a really old case. Child abduction and abuse. I had the case file retrieved from archives.”
    “Jesus. What happened to the poor man?”
    “Nothing good. The thing is, the case went cold and was reopened more than a dozen years later.”
    “I’m not following you, Gus. What does this have to do with the girl’s murder or finding Stephanie?”
    Lido placed his beer bottle on the table and looked at her directly. “The case was reopened by Frank.”
    Her mouth opened wide. “ My Frank?”
    Lido nodded. “I thought maybe you might know something about—”
    “Wait a minute. This guy you interviewed. You said that his last name is Ramirez, didn’t you?”
    “No, actually. It’s Burns. Jack Burns. He’s the girl’s adoptive father.”
    Ma gasped and covered her open mouth before pulling out a kitchen chair and dropping into it. “Jack Burns?” She rubbed her forehead. “My God.”
    “Ring a bell?”
    “Oh my Lord, yes. Frank and Jack were childhood friends. Frank felt responsible for what happened to Jack, but . . . I knew that he reopened the case. I was going to tell Stephanie about it when she was in the hospital but somehow I just didn’t get around to it. I always thought it was the reason Frank became a cop.”
    “So what can you tell me about it?”
    She thought for a moment before ladling pasta into his dish. “You’d better start eating. It’ll get cold before I get through the whole story.”
    “Long story, is it?”
    “Oh yes. Frank and I had just started to date when it happened, and let me tell you, it rocked the whole neighborhood.”
    Gus looked down at the large bowl and smiled as she filled it to the brim with mounds of steaming macaroni. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me anyway. Take your time.”

Chapter Twenty-Three
    Manhattan 1973
    “That’s-that’s-that’s a do-over,” Reggie protested in his accustomed stutter as he watched his bottle cap sail past the number twelve square at the far end of the skully board. The white chalk skully board had been marked in the street alongside the johnny pump between two parked cars. Reggie would’ve won the game and a quarter from each of his friends had his bottle cap landed on the number twelve square. “Hey. Why-why-why’d you d-do that, Jack-O?”
    Jack-O was short for jack off, and Jack Burns was going out of his way to show that he had earned his nickname. He’d pounded the end of his baseball bat on the street just as Reggie was about to take his shot, causing him to miss. “Duh-do-do-do-over,” he said, teasing his friend. “You sound like a baby with a wet diaper.”
    “Well, it is a do-do-do-over.” Reggie stood to retrieve his rare Pepsi flat-top bottle cap, a one in a thousand find, one that had miraculously left the bottling plant without getting crimped on top of a soda bottle. He was just reaching for it when Jack crushed it with his bat. “Hey!” Reggie’s eyes flashed hotly as he looked down at his now-mangled treasure. “You’re-you’re a real jerk. That’s the-the only one I’ve got like that.” He pushed Jack with two hands, not hard enough to start a fight, just hard enough to demonstrate that he was angry.
    Jack pounded the bat into his open palm. “Try that again, dipshit. I dare you.”
    “Cut it out, Jack.” Frank Chalice wasn’t as tall as Jack, but he was