One Cold Night

young man, and we liked him. He overcame some real hardships, losing his father and his brother so young.”
    “We never knew Robbie personally,” Carole said, “but Peter used to mention him from time to time. He adored his big brother, and I got the impression that when he died... well, I always figured that under Peter’s high gloss he was a little bit shattered.”
    A little bit shattered, Dave thought; just a little bit. He wondered what had really happened at that swimming hole.
    Ramos put down her pen and leaned back in her chair. “Did Peter ever get any help for his problems?”
    “He had some creams for his eczema,” Susan said, “but they never could cure it.”
    “There is no cure, as far as I know,” Carole added.
    “What about his mental problems?” Ramos asked. “The suicide attempt. He see a psychiatrist? Take meds for depression? Anything like that?”
    “Not that he ever mentioned,” Susan said. “His moods were a little shaky, though.”
    “I admit I always wondered,” Carole said softly, “just in the back of my mind, if Peter might somedayrun into trouble. Sometimes you could see the weather changing in that boy’s eyes.”
    “Look at that letter.” Bill made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the letter, his voice stoked with anger. “I’d say he is trouble if he wrote that.”
    “No one said he wrote it,” Ramos said.
    “Well, isn’t that what this is all about?” Bill’s face went sharply red. “You just can’t tell me, Detective, that this chat about Lisa’s birth father, right now, is your idea of socializing.”
    “I don’t socialize much.” Ramos wouldn’t succumb to Bill Bailey’s forcefulness; a good decision, Dave knew from experience. “Susan, I know this isn’t easy for you.”
    Susan went stony, just managing to hold herself together. Dave leaned across the table to rest his hand on Susan’s and Marie’s, which were still joined and had grown warm.
    Ramos clipped her pen to her pad and stood up. “Come on, Strauss, let’s get to work.”
    “Marie?” Dave pulled away, standing. “Can we drop you at home?”
    Marie hesitated. “Maybe I’ll stay a little longer.”
    “You sure?”
    “If it’s all right with you,” Marie asked Susan.
    “Yes,” Susan said, “please stay.”
    Bill got up, crossed the room and systematically threw open one window after another. Wind now sped through the open space, wind and the grind of construction that would crescendo into the afternoon. The crisp air was a relief; Dave took a deep breath of it.
    “Yo, boys!” Ramos shouted down the hall. “Come on, we’re outta here!” Detectives LaPierre and Shabbaz appeared from Lisa’s room and followed her to the door. “How’d you do?”
    “Nothing,” LaPierre said.
    “Ditto.” Shabbaz.
    Dave got a Ziploc bag from the kitchen and slid the letter into it. He would take it over to Forensics himself, then back to the Eight-four to see what Bruno had turned up. If any of the witnesses had arrived, they could start questioning them.
    “Keep in close touch with us, Dave,” Carole said.
    “I will.”
    Dave felt Susan watching him and turned to look at her. His beautiful, beloved, emptied-out wife. For one quiet moment, their eyes settled into each other’s; he felt awful leaving her but he had to go to work. He needed to find Lisa. And now he also needed to find Peter Adkins, whether or not he turned out to be the groom. Dave’s mind was filled with this man he had never known existed until today and who now seemed to be dictating his entire future. His job and his marriage, and possibly Lisa’s life, were all suddenly predicated on who this man would turn out to be.

Chapter 16
    Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.
    Outside the loft building on Washington Street, Lupe Ramos put Strauss in a squad car with LaPierre and Shabbaz and sent them over to Forensics with the letter, then home. Home being the Eight-four — she spent so much time there. Her real home was in her son Orlando’s heart, she’d told her boy once when she’d been caught on a case for two days and nights straight. He was nine then, angry at her when she walked in the door after so much time alone with Grandma-who-couldn’teven-speak-English, and she’d told him, “Look, baby, there’s no piece of ground that can separate me from my true home, and that home is you. Got it?”
    “Yeah, Mom, got it.”
    She chucked him on the chin with the back of her hand and he flew into her arms. They