Speaking in Tongues

knock-the-clown-in-the-water shit.”
    “I’m just telling you that Jack Sharpe would love for me to be out of commission come that argument at the Supreme Court in Richmond next week. And I think he’s had somebody in a van following me. Sorry, no tag, no model.”
    Konnie nodded slowly. Then added, “But he’s got boys he’d hire for that. And they could hire other boys. No way could you trace it back to him. And you think anybody’d snitch on Jack Sharpe?”
    “I’m not a prosecutor anymore, Konnie. I don’t want to make a case. I want to find Megan. Period. End of story.”
    “And kneecap the prick who did it.”
    Tate pushed the bags containing the letter and the bone toward Konnie again. “Please.”
    Another mournful glance at his cooling dinner. “Be right back.”
    “Wait.” Tate handed him another Baggie. “Exemplars of Megan’s prints on the keys and mine on that glass. And remember you handled the note too.”
    Konnie nodded. “The prosecutor in you ain’t dead, I see.” Carrying the bags, he walked down the hall toward the forensic lab. He returned a moment later.
    “Won’t be long. I was looking forward to supper.”
    Tate ignored the red-and-white KFC bag and continued. “Now, there was a gray Mercedes following her. Can you check that out?”
    “Check what out?”
    “Registered owners of gray Mercedeses.”
    “I was asking before: year, model, tag?”
    “Still none.”
    Konnie laughed. He typed heavily on his computer keyboard. “This’ll be worth it just to see your expression.”
    As he waited for the results Konnie peeked into the tallest Kentucky Fried bag, kneaded his ample stomach absently. “You know what the worst is? The worst is when the mashed potatoes get cold. You can eat the chicken when it’s cold because everybody does that. On a picnic, say. Same with the beans. But when mashed potatoes get cold you have to throw them out. Which is bad enough but then you think about them all night—how good they would’ve been. That’s what I mean by the worst.”
    The screen fluttered. Konnie leaned forward.
    “Here’s what we got. I did Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William and Loudoun. Mercedes, all types, all years, gray.”
    Tate leaned forward and read: Your request has resulted in 2,603 responses.
    “Two thousand,” Tate muttered. “Man.”
    “Two thousand six hundred.”
    Tate knew from his prosecuting days that too much evidence was as useless as too little.
    “If you’re just not buying the runaway stuff”—Konnie sighed—“we’re gonna have to do more thinking. All right, you think Sharpe’s a possibility and I don’t think he’s above snatching a girl. But there anybody else? Think hard now, Tate. Anybody hassling her?”
    “Recently?”
    “Like last year’s weirdos don’t count?” Konnie snorted. “When ever!”
    “Not that I know of. I have to say there was a rumor . . . it was just a rumor . . . she might’ve been seeing . . . well, having sex with some older men. And maybe there was some money involved. I mean, they were paying her.”
    If Konnie felt anything about this he didn’t show it. “You have any idea who? Where?”
    “Some kids at this place called the Coffee—”
    “—Shop. They been trying to close that piss hole down for a year. Well, I can poke around there. Ask some questions. Now, was she in any cults or anything?”
    “No, don’t think so.”
    “You or Bett in anything like that?”
    “Me?”
    “All right, your wife.”
    “Ex,” Tate corrected.
    “Whatever. She did that sort of stuff.”
    “It was strictly softball with her. No Heaven’s Gate or Jonestown or anything like that. Bett wouldn’t even put up these Indian posters because they had reverse swastikas on them. Nothing to do with Nazis; she just thought it was bad karma.”
    “Karma,” Konnie scoffed. “Any relationships of yours go south in a big way recently?”
    “I—”
    “ ’Fore you answer, think back to every one of them twenty-one-year-olds you promised diamonds to and then ran for the hills.”
    “I never proposed to a single one,” Tate said.
    “Never proposed to marry ’em, maybe.”
    “You don’t get Fatal Attraction after three dates. That’s about the longest term I went.”
    “Sad, Tate, sad. How ’bout Bett?”
    “I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”
    “Any relatives acting squirrelly? Might’ve wanted to take the girl and run?”
    “Only relative nearby’s Bett’s sister,