Page 22 of Never Flinch

“You didn’t see anyone?”

“No. Just… them.” She points around the corner, then jerks her hand back as if her finger were a periscope that might show her what she doesn’t want to look at again.

Tom comes back. “Ma’am, you’ll need to come down to the police station at Court Plaza and give a recorded statement, but not until later. Can you do five o’clock?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“For now, you can go back to work.”

Marie looks at him like he’s crazy. “I’m goinghome. I have a Valium in the medicine cabinet and I’m going to take it.” She looks at Tom defiantly, as if daring the detective to contradict her.

“Do that,” Izzy says. “Can I have your address?”

Marie touches the loose skin under her neck. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”

Izzy smiles. “No, Marie, but we’ll need that statement. Are you okay to drive?”

“Yes, I think so.”

When she’s gone, Tom says, “Each of the decedents has a piece of paper in his hand. I could make out TURN on one of them. Whatmight be BY in the other guy’s. I was tempted to spread their fingers a little but didn’t.”

“Probably just as well. We’ll know soon enough. Is the lieutenant coming?”

“He is.” Tom glances around. “Thank God there are no lookie-loos. This is a zombie shopping mall if there ever was one. Of course that means no witnesses, either.”

“Including Marie,” Izzy says. “You think she’s lucky to be alive?”

“I do. And I think she knows it.”

Izzy goes around the corner. The body of one sits in his lawn chair with his head on his chest, as if sleeping. The other lies facedown in the weeds, one cracked and dusty loafer against the laundromat’s cinderblock back wall. “What a shitty place to die.”

“At least they died warm,” Tom says. “I brought six corpsesicles to the morgue after that hard freeze we had in January. Two with no IDs. One was a little kid.”

“Excuse me a minute.”

She goes out to the sidewalk and sees that Holly has left a voicemail. It’s two words, justcall me, but Holly sounds excited.

She’s figured something out, Izzy thinks.Damn, that woman issospooky. Sherlock Holmes in low heels, pastel blouses, and tweed skirts.

6

Holly finds some of the jewelry she’s looking for at O’Leary Pawn & Loan on Dock Street. Being nonconfrontational unless she absolutely has to be, Holly doesn’t engage with Dennis O’Leary, who wants to argue and be all poopy, but simply photographs the sparklers and walks out. Let the insurance people take over, with or without police involvement. She’ll get at least part of her bonus, and that makes her happy.

Her phone rings as she’s getting into her car. It’s Izzy. Holly was excited in the women’s room, sure she’d nailed at least part of the puzzle, but she has a tendency to second-guess herself, and now she hesitates. What if she’s wrong? But Izzy won’t laugh at her even if she is, in her heart Holly knows this, and besides…

“I’m right, I know I am,” she says, and takes the call.

“What’s up, Hols?”

“Do you know how many different two-digit combinations add up to fourteen, Izzy?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Seven, but only if you use seven twice. Six if you don’t. And one of those combinations is twelve plus two.”

“Stop dancing around it, girl. I’m at a crime scene. Double murder. Bill Wilson’s work. Forensics van’s on the way.”

“Oh my God! He left names?”

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