Criminal

week. “To what end?”
    “To blackmail Andrew Treadwell.” She had a smile on her face. “Mark my word, Hank Bennett’s going to be running that firm one day.”
    Amanda sighed. She wondered if Evelyn’s magazines were to blame for these crazy conspiracies. “Kitty Treadwell is buried somewhere in a shallow grave. Ulster took them to kill them, not rehabilitate them.”
    “Someone put that baby in the trashcan.”
    Amanda didn’t have an answer for her. Part of Lucy’s body was still sewn to the mattress when they found her. Pete Hanson couldn’t give them an exact window for the time between Wilbur’s birth and Lucy’s death. They could only assume the girl had been free at some point and hidden the baby.
    And then Ulster had come home and sewn her back down?
    Evelyn said, “I just feel like we’re missing something.”
    Amanda didn’t want to feed the flame, but she had the same bad feeling. “Who else could’ve helped him?” she asked. “Trey Callahan was caught in Biloxi with his fiancée.” The man claimed that he’d only stolen the money from the mission in order to self-publish his book. “Obviously, Ulster was trying to frame Callahan with all that Ophelia stuff. Don’t you think if there was a second killer, then Ulster would’ve framed that person instead?”
    “How about this: where’s the money coming from?”
    Herman Centrello. Evelyn was determined to find out how James Ulster was paying for the best criminal defense lawyer in the Southeast.
    Amanda shook her head. “Why does it matter? No lawyer in the world can get him out of this. Ulster was caught red-handed. His bloody fingerprints are on the knife.”
    “He’ll skate on the other girls. We don’t have anything to tie him to Jane or Mary. We don’t have Kitty’s body—if it’s out there. Ulster could eventually get paroled. That’s why you need to hold on to that slide. Maybe the science will be ready for it by then.”
    “He’ll be in his sixties. He’ll be too old to walk, let alone hurt anybody.”
    Evelyn pushed open the exit door. “And we’ll be retired little grannies, living with our husbands in Florida, wondering why our children never call.”
    Amanda wanted to hold on to that image. She wanted to think about it tonight when she tried to go to sleep and all she could see was that condescending look in Ulster’s eyes. He’d been laughing at her. He was holding something back, and he knew that it gave him power over everyone else.
    Evelyn asked, “Did Kenny call you?”
    Amanda let her blush be her answer. She adjusted her purse over her shoulder as they walked toward the station. There was a commotion going on by the front door. Two cops were wrangling with a wino. He already had a resisting-arrest turban. His hands waved wildly as he was jerked back by his collar.
    Amanda said, “We actually wanted to come back to this.”
    Evelyn looked at her watch. “Crap, we’re late for roll call.”
    So much for their triumphant return. Luther Hodge would probably put them on desk duty all week. Amanda hated filing, but at least she’d have Evelyn to commiserate with. Maybe they could look at some of the cases on the missing black girls. There was no harm in putting together another construction paper puzzle.
    “Hey!” The wino was still struggling as they walked to the entrance of the station. One of the patrolmen smacked him on the ear. The man’s head jerked like a sling.
    The squad was as smoke-filled and dingy as usual. The room looked the same: crooked rows of tables crossing the room, white on one side, black on the other. Men in front, women in back. Hodge was at the podium. Everyone was seated for roll call.
    But for some reason, they started to stand.
    First, it was some of the white detectives, then slowly the blacks stood from their tables. It went around the room in a slow wave, ending with Vanessa Livingston, who, as usual, was sitting in the last row. She gave them both a thumbs-up. Her teeth showed in a proud grin.
    Evelyn seemed momentarily stunned, but she kept her head high as she walked into the room. Amanda tried to do the same as she followed. The men cleared a path for them. No one spoke. They didn’t whistle. They didn’t make catcalls. Some of them nodded. Rick Landry was the only one who remained seated, but standing beside him was Butch Bonnie, who seemed to have some grudging respect in his eyes.
    Then the moment was ruined as the wino was thrown into the squad room.