Free The Debt Collector by Lynn S. Hightower

said.” Sonora pushed harder, but the drawer was stuck.
    Crick headed to her desk. “Let me talk to him.”
    â€œHe hung up already.” Sonora shoved harder, and the desk made a high-pitched squeak but came within an inch of shutting.
    â€œLet me help you with that,” Sam said.
    â€œ No . Thank you.”
    â€œSee? Cranky for the last seven months.”
    Crick left his coffee cup behind, signaling serious intent, and headed for her desk. “Let me talk to him.”
    â€œI told you, sir, he hung up already.”
    â€œWhen Jack Van Owen calls, you let me talk to him. What did he want?”
    â€œHe had information about some guy he arrested eighteen years ago, guy named Lanky Aruba, and another one named Barty Kinkle.”
    â€œKinkle.” Crick went back for the cup, swallowed coffee. Chewed it around in his mouth. “Don’t remember Kinkle, but something about Aruba gives me that old bad feeling.”
    â€œVan Owen knows both of them. Says this Aruba is not all there, but what is there is brutal, spits olive pits on his victims. I just don’t see how Van Owen knew about the pits.”
    â€œProbably called a buddy in CSU, but the guy is damn near psychic. Best cop I ever worked with.” He pointed his cup toward Sonora. “This guy tells you something, you better pay attention.” Crick took a gulp of coffee. Waiting.
    Sonora picked up her notes. “Aruba is some kind of uncle or something to Barton Melville Kinkle, and Aruba’s got a sister in Kentucky. That’s where he’ll be headed, is what Van Owen thinks. If this is our guy.”
    â€œHow many olive-pit killers you think there are in Cincinnati?” Sam asked.
    Crick rubbed his chin. “So Jack thinks Aruba and Kinkle look good?”
    â€œYeah. And if it’s them, Van Owen says they’ll be headed for Kentucky. Course, if it’s not, they’re both probably home in bed.”
    â€œSomething to check,” Sam said.
    Sonora felt a tap on her elbow. It was Sanders, thirty pounds heavier than a year ago when she’d given up at long last on a toxic romance, but still wearing the soft straight sandy pageboy, the Peter Pan collars, and pleated skirts. The extra weight made her look older.
    Her look was apologetic. “I’ve got an address for you, Sonora. Carl Stinnet’s next of kin.”

14
    It was a life of late-night work, Sonora thought. A cone of light, cast by a lamp against the press of shadow and dark, illuminated the papers on her desk. She put the typed two-page description of Joy Stinnet’s last words in a file, inhaled the smell of fatigue and concentration, a human alone, at work, lonely. Strange for a Tuesday, giving her an out-of-sync feeling. The world was out at Applebee’s and neighborhood bars, tucked up with Jay Leno and their significant others, and she was here, alone with the guys on the last shift, sweating beneath the halogen light, working on things to make the heart cringe.
    She left the coffee cup half full on her desk and headed home.
    It was long, the drive out to Blue Ash. Somehow, the death of the family Stinnet had infected her, settled into her mind like silt in the bottom of a dirty brown river. She could not stop things. She only saw the aftermath, in the hushed, shocky quiet after the noise and the shouting, the blood and the tears.
    She would die, too, one day. Step off that ledge. Sonora tried to shake the thought. Couldn’t. The recognition of mortality was as familiar to her as desire.
    She was way too tired, way too down. Police work was dangerous that way.
    Clampett was glad to see her.
    It dawned on Sonora, as she passed the kitchen table, that she had not looked into the fruit basket for a while. It was always her intention to keep it full of crisp apples, firm kiwis, and whatever else was in season. But it was not the kind of thing you could leave on its own for weeks at a time.
    She passed it by