Free One Cold Night by Katia Lief Page B

and Alexei Bruno. “Word is they’d win the Most Annoying Award hands down, every time, but here’s the catch: They’ve never failed a case... Uh, sorry, Dave.”
    “No,” Dave said, “never mind.” His tone was stoic but he knew he wasn’t fooling Sam. Dave had once been the Seven-eight’s best hitter, the one who had never failed a case — until Becky Rothka. Last October he had asked the Rothka family all the same questions he heard tonight about Lisa and listened to the answers with the same wariness of adolescent instability he had seen on Zeb Johnson’s face: tolerance, doubt. No one in the Rothka family was an MOS, but Becky Rothka was a young thirteen, a true innocent, so he had stepped on the gas.
    “So you think Bruno and Ramos are up to it?” Dave asked Sam.
    “Word is they are.”
    “Well, Sam, if you say so. Just tell me how to convince my wife.”
    “Sorry, pal, that’s up to you. So you working this case with them?”
    “I don’t know yet. And Sam, it might not be much of a case.”
    “Right. Let’s hope. Gimme a buzz if you need anything, okay?”
    “Thanks, Sam.”
    Dave clipped his phone back onto his belt loop and walked into what had every unsettling appearance of a crime scene. He hated how this was shaping up, hated all the reminders of Becky’s disappearance last year, hated that some guy had been reported lurking around these very streets just days ago. Hated it.
    The forensics technician was finished with the front door and was now working in the garage on the tool cabinet where the paint and paintbrush had been stored. Outside, Dave listened to Lupe Ramos bark orders to someone in the CIS van, insisting he take thefirst set of prints to the lab now. The lady had some serious nerve. The guy in the van said they should wait, and Ramos came back with a stream of threats and insults that pummeled the man into acquiescence. The van drove off with half a job that would probably displace seven others.
    Yellow police tape now cordoned off a whole section of Water Street; the yellow tape and the yellow paint were the only vivid colors in the early-morning darkness other than the bright pink splash of Lupe Ramos. She drove the investigation like disaster triage, using Bruno as her right hand. No wonder he was cranky: According to Sam Trachtenberg, Ramos and Bruno were equals, despite the obvious fact that she treated him like a subordinate.
    It was nearly four a.m., soon to break into a new day, but outside it was still deep night. Dave was used to all-nighters and the raw edge of exhaustion, but Susan wasn’t, and Lisa was her sister. He wondered how his wife was coping.
    He found her in the office at the back of the factory. It was a small room crammed with a desk and two chairs. Bracket shelving climbed all the way to the ceiling, holding wire baskets of recipes, magazines, inventory records, invoices, receipts — the entire paper blizzard of a small business, neatly organized. Two green paper tickets tacked to a corkboard reminded him that they had had plans for that very night: Wednesday, eight p.m., Brooklyn Academy of Music, New Wave Festival. (He wouldn’t have been able to go with her, since he’d rotated into the night shift — a condition of detective work that annoyed his wife and routinely stymied their social life — and she probably would have taken Lisa instead.) Susan sat at the desk, running through the electronic pages of her BlackBerry’s daily planner. Zeb Johnson sat beside her, taking notes about Lisa’s schedule in the last few weeks.
    “Sweetie?” Dave stood in the doorway, warming his hands in his pockets.
    “They want to talk to all of Lisa’s close friends.”
    Dave nodded; it was protocol.
    “That’s it, I think.” Susan handed Johnson a list of names and numbers.
    Johnson stood up and thanked her. “If you think of anything else, let me know.”
    When they were alone, Dave shut the door and sat next to Susan. He told her about his call to Sam