Page 13 of Roses Are Dead
And Hickey was right. Which meant I needed to own up to my bullshit. “I got distracted.”
“By pussy,” Sprout stage-whispered.
I glared at him. “Now you’re calling Jackson a pussy?”
Wisely, Sprout wiped the smile off his face and pretended to be interested in something very far away.
“How’d you find that photo?” I asked.
“Tracked a rumor to a mega-church directory. Found Carl, he’s the pastor’s son, and this woman? She was his sister’s best friend. They’re in a lot of photos together from a decade ago and older. Not as many recently. Carl’s sister has cancer. There’s one of them prayer request sites online for her.”
“Name? I mean, for the woman, not the sister.”
Hickey tapped a few seconds more. “Huh.” He sounded stumped.
“Is that a good huh or a bad one? Skinner?” I asked Hickey’s counterpart, who wasn’t as easily distracted by unnecessary details.
Skinner stopped searching the police databases to see who was dispatched yesterday and looked over. “Name change.” He scanned farther.
“At age twelve. Whoa, and age six from the one she was born with. Damn. She’s used up her quota.”
These guys and their trivia. A few years back someone discovered you can legally change your name three times without incurring a fee. Trust one of these two to remember that tidbit but not give me a straight answer.
I drummed my fingers on Wolf’s desk because I didn’t have a name…yet. This was why I didn’t want the damn VP job. No one listened to me. If Jackson or Wolf had asked for a name, they’d have it. No commentary, no side convo. No fucking trivia.
They didn’t get the hint. “Well?”
“Current name is listing as Rosin Black. That screams alias. Figures, she picked it when she was twelve.” Skinner pronounced her first name like the stuff in the bag you use on pitching mounds.
That couldn’t be right, not for a woman as alluring as her. I looked at what Hickey had dug up. The spelling was Roishin. Pretty name. Perfect for the cute little divots behind her knees.
“It’s pronounced, ROEsheen. It’s Irish. And Black? That’s Irish, too.”
Hickey stared at me.
“What? You think I can’t know things?”
That shut his mouth. Skinner jumped into the breach. “It’s just that you seem to know a hell of a lot about a woman you saw climbing into Carl’s swamp green Scat Pack.”
I counted twice on my fingers. “I don’t know why she’s with him, or whether she’s working with the cops, do I? That’s what I need you two for.”
Hickey tapped some more. “She ain’t working with the cops. She ain’t working period. ‘Got fired from a local pharmaceutical research facility last month.”
That was too coincidental. I spun my thoughts out loud. “Pharmaceutical? Carl loves his pill customers…”
A set of nods followed my logic.
“Do you think she’s a cook?” Skinner asked.
A methamphetamine cook would make sense. More sense than someone actually being in love with the asshole. Then again, would he let his cook drive his car?
That didn’t fit with what I knew of Carl. He never did anything decent unless he could profit off it, or get favors for it.
“I think we need to give him a visit.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket? You need to give him a visit.” Hickey said.
Sprout chimed in. “Once Wolf approves it.”
