Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [88]
He put the jar back in the closet by the bed, and looked down at his father. He was working his jaw, trying to say something, but all that came out was a high squeaking sound, like a frightened mouse.
Caleb smiled indulgently. “What is it—what are you trying to say? Concentrate now,” he said, bending lower so that their faces almost touched. His father’s breath smelled rusty, like old coffee grounds. “Remember what I said about concentrating on each word,” Caleb said with a tolerant smile.
His father struggled to speak, his face growing redder until it was a mottled scarlet. Caleb smiled down at him. He would be patient until his pa got the words out. He didn’t mind waiting—he had all the time in the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The next day Lee and Butts dropped by the Jack Hammer, after finding out from Bobby Vangetti that was where he and Joe partied the night before Joe was killed. It was a Monday, though, and the place was closed, locked, and bolted. The owner was out of town, so rather than try to get a search warrant on short notice, they planned to return when it was open, figuring the clientele would offer more leads than an empty room. Technically speaking, it wasn’t a crime scene—though both Lee and Butts thought it likely Joe had met his murderer that night.
Bobby had been so stoned that night he remembered little about the evening. They failed to get much out of him during their interview, other than that he and Joe “weren’t faggots,” and were just there “on a kick,” a phrase he repeated over and over. They suspected he had been on other things besides alcohol, but it hardly mattered; whatever altered state he was in, he couldn’t remember much.
In the meantime, they decided to pay another visit to Dr. Martin Perkins. The Honorable Deborah Weinstein, the judge they approached for a warrant to search his patient files, turned out to be a stickler for civil liberties and didn’t feel they had enough cause to go rifling through people’s private lives.
“You’re persuasive,” she said, gazing up at them over bifocals while munching on a ham sandwich. “Use your charm—get the good doctor to surrender them voluntarily.” She added a few choice comments about the Bush Administration’s recent rollbacks on civil liberties—her refusal felt like a backlash reaction to the excesses of the White House.
They left early, driving in the opposite direction from the commuters headed into Manhattan, and arrived in Stockton in about ninety minutes. They had not warned Perkins of their visit, and they parked down the street in front of the liquor store, hoping to catch him off guard. The chances of getting something out of an interview with a potential suspect increased exponentially when you added the element of surprise.
When they knocked on the front door, it opened almost immediately to reveal Martin Perkins, immaculately dressed in a cream-colored flannel suit and Italian leather shoes. A striped blue and ivory cravat was wrapped tightly around his neck; he looked like something out of an Oscar Wilde play. A pair of old-fashioned bifocals perched precariously on his thin nose. The wire rims looked handcrafted, and the lenses had an uneven quality, the glass thicker in some places than others.
“Hello there,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound friendly. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a return visit?”
“We just had a few follow-up questions for you,” Butts replied.
“I see,” Perkins said, stepping out onto the porch and closing the door behind him. “This is about poor Ana, then? I don’t know what I’ll be able to add, but I’m always glad to assist the law in any way I can.”
“I noticed your Green Man,” Lee remarked with a glance in the direction of the statue. The stony eyes glared down at them, vines gushing out of its sculpted mouth.
“Ah, yes,” Perkins said, squinting