LITMIR.BIZ

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drawers and closets, seeking some connection he might have had with Lara or with the Moretti ring at the time it had been operational.

      “When I was undercover I met a lot of men who worked for Moretti, but I don’t remember ever seeing Dunst,” Lara said, unable to hide her frustration. “Why did he ask for me to go out on that ledge? Why me specifically?”

      “We’ve only just started investigating. Maybe more digging will give us the answers.”

      The next bedroom held a single bed and a small chest of drawers. The bedspread was pink, and a doll sat on the pillows, staring at them with big blue unseeing glass eyes. There was also a coloring book and a small box of crayons on a nightstand.

      Despite her need to maintain an emotional distance, Lara’s heart cringed as she thought of little Tina locked up in this room for two long weeks before her death. Had she been terrified? How long and how hard had she cried for her mommy and daddy?

      “Why did he have to kill her?” She spoke more to herself than to her new partner. “And why didn’t he stamp her?”

      “Maybe he thought he could sell her to members of the Moretti syndicate, but found out that he had no takers, that nobody from the organization was working anymore. He couldn’t just let her go. She could have identified him, so he had to kill her,” Nick suggested.

      “Maybe, but after Moretti and some of his crew were arrested, several violent gangs tried to take over Moretti’s territory both here and in Chicago. But they all wound up dead or arrested. So, who did Dunst think he could sell her to?”

      “Maybe just a local pedophile willing to pay a good price?”

      “Then why the Moretti symbol stamp?” Lara asked.

      “I don’t know. Let’s check out the rest of the house, and then we can interview some of the neighbors,” Nick replied.

      The upper two floors of the brownstone were completely empty except for cobwebs and mouse droppings. “He must have sold or pawned anything of value for his drug habit,” Nick said. They searched everyplace in the house to try to find something that might provide a clue as to Dunst’s reason for asking for Lara or any connection to the supposedly defunct Moretti syndicate. They found nothing.

      Hopefully they would learn more by talking to some of the neighbors and people out on the streets. Since it was Friday night, the lowlifes would soon take over the area.

      * * *

      It was twilight when Nick knocked on the door to the right of Dunst’s place where Lara had earlier seen the curtain move. A middle-aged woman answered the door, and they identified themselves as FBI agents.

      “I assume you’re here because of what happened to Sean,” she said as she led them into a spotlessly clean living room where two young boys were playing a video game.

      “Gary and Greg, upstairs to the playroom,” she said as she gestured Nick and Lara to a beige-and-brown plaid sofa. After a bit of grumbling, the two kids turned off the video game and headed up the stairs.

      “Your name, ma’am?” Nick asked and pulled a small notepad and pen from his shirt pocket.

      “Rhoda Watson, and I just have to say that I know it isn’t nice, but I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said with a raise of her pointed chin. Her cheeks flushed slightly with color. “I’m sorry, but he was a creep and a braggart, always talking about the good old days when he worked for some big crime boss.”

      “Moretti?” Lara asked.

      Rhoda frowned and nodded her head. “Yeah, I think that’s the one. I don’t know what he was into in his past, but he was nothing but a scuzzy dope dealer, and then there were all those rumors when little Tina Cole was found dead.”

      “Rumors?” Lara leaned forward.

      “Just word out on the streets that maybe he and his girlfriend had something to do with her kidnapping and death. I’ve got kids of my own, and it was bad enough knowing he lived right next door before the Cole girl was found.”

      “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted him dead? Did he ever mention any specific threats against him?” Nick asked.

      She frowned thoughtfully once again. “No, but he ran with a rough crowd and bragged about what a big man he was. Who knows who he might have double-crossed in the dope business or in one of the gangs that are in this neighborhood?”

      “You mentioned a girlfriend?” Nick asked.

      Rhoda nodded. “Sheila Currothers. She’s been dating Sean for a little over a year.”

      “She doesn’t live with him?” Lara asked.

      “No, but she spent plenty of time next door. She would have known that little girl was there. She lives in the Applegate Apartments a block over. I’m not sure what apartment number, but if you can’t find her there, she strips most evenings at Nasty Nate’s, a dive off Macon Street.”

      Lara exchanged glances with Nick. Nick stood and pulled out a business card. “If you think of anything else that might help us find the person responsible for Sean’s death, please, give me a call.”

      Rhoda nodded, but there was a dark fear in her eyes, the fear of potential reprisal, of payback to her or her family. Lara knew they wouldn’t hear anything more from her even if she did learn something worthwhile.

      “I’m hoping we can catch Sheila at her apartment instead of having to enter a place called Nasty Nate’s,” Nick said as they left the Watson brownstone.

      “Great minds think alike,” Lara agreed.

      It took them only minutes to arrive at the Applegate Apartments where, thankfully, a manager was on site to give them Sheila’s apartment number.

      It was obvious by the condition of the building that Sheila’s standard of living wasn’t much better than Dunst’s. The three-story brick structure looked as if it hadn’t been updated or cleaned since the early Fifties.

      Weeds and overgrown bushes plagued the unkempt yard area, and two rusted benches just outside the front door didn’t welcome anyone to sit and relax.

      Worn gold shag carpeting lined the hallway that took them to the stairs. It was a walk-up with no elevator, and of course Sheila lived on the third floor.

      A mixture of smells assaulted Lara’s nose as they climbed upward. Urine, weed, a strong scent of sauerkraut and utter hopelessness all mingled together to form a sickening odor.

      Lara knocked on the door of apartment 312, and her knock was answered by a thin tall blonde woman with large breast implants and red-rimmed blue eyes. She was clad in a red-and-yellow silk dressing robe, and she pulled the belt more tightly around her waist as she ushered them inside.

      The living room was furnished minimally, but was fairly tidy if one ignored the colorful handful of G-strings that hung from the doorknob on the door that presumably led to the bedroom.

      “You’re here about my Dunstie.” She motioned them to the sofa and then sank down into a chair facing them and grabbed a tissue from the box on the end table next to her.

      “I just can’t believe he’s gone.” She blinked her big blue eyes. “I mean, he is really gone, right? What I saw on television was real, not some silly joke he played on me or a crazy reality show.”

      Okay, not the brightest bulb in the room, Lara thought with an inward sigh. On a good day Lara didn’t possess a lot of patience, and she had a feeling Sheila Currothers was quickly going to get on her last nerve.

      “Yes, what you saw on television was very real. Sean is dead,” Nick replied, his deep voice without emotion.

      Sheila balled up the tissue in her hand. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. He was so good to me. Oh, I know he didn’t do everything right. He wasn’t a perfect man. I know about him selling drugs and some other things...but at heart

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