“Nobody saw Marsha after she was talking with Carlane?” Kelly asked.
“You think it’s Carlane?” Dolores responded, eyes wide. “He’s been around since before I got here.”
“No,” Kelly said. “That’s not what I said. I’m just getting old and trying to cut down on the walking. Since I’m looking for the last person she was known to have talked to, which is never the murderer, I’m just trying to figure out who that was. If it wasn’t Carlane, who was it?”
“Christy said she saw her late evening, maybe after midnight,” Dolores replied, frowning in thought. “Up Dumaine Street, off her regular beat. Looked like she was heading somewhere. But last time I saw her was talking to Carlane and she ain’t been seen since Saturday night.”
“Okay,” Kelly said, sighing. “You see Carlane, tell him I’m looking for him, like him to give me a call. Just a friendly conversation. Or I can go find him, or have the black and whites go find him, and it won’t be so friendly.”
“I’ll pass it on,” Dolores said. “You be careful.”
“Always,” Kelly replied, walking off into the crowded night.
Chapter Three
You get anything talking to the girls?” Lieutenant Chimot asked.
They were going over the daily take on the case. The department had set up a task force with Chimot, who was one of the three lieutenants in Homicide, in charge. It was late, but nobody was getting much sleep as long as the investigation was going on. There were five other sergeant detectives working the case but Kelly sort of figured if anybody was going to find the perp it would be him. The other detectives were straight-arrow homicide dicks; in other words they could just about see lightning and hear thunder.
Most homicides were pretty straightforward investigations. There was a dead body on the floor and a person, usually a spouse, standing over it mumbling about whatever had set them off. File the paperwork, go to court, walk the jury through the chain of evidence and you were done. Then there were the gang shootings, which usually came down to somebody boasting and squeezing the name out of a singer.