Page 83 of Never Flinch

“First, tell me if you found anything out from Detective Atta.”

“I did. Two of the jurors in the Duffrey case committed suicide. Ellis Finkel and Jabari Wentworth. They met during the trial and became lovers. Wentworth’s wife kicked him out of the house when she found out he’d been sneaking around, and with a man. His family shunned him. That might have been a religious thing. Religion kinda sucks, don’t you think?”

“No opinion,” Holly says.

“Anyway, Finkel had AIDS, under control but a constant struggle for him. Short form, the police don’t believe it had anything to do with guilt over what happened to Alan Duffrey.”

“So terrible,” Holly says. “A waste of two lives.”

She finds herself close to tears, partially because of the pointlessness of those deaths, mostly because she’s still dealing with the fact that Kate McKay almost got her head bashed in on her watch.

“Agreed,” Jerome says. “Now tell me what I missed.”

She tells him. There’s silence on the other end.

“Jerome? Are you still there?”

“Fuck,” he says. “Oh,fuck! Really? That simple?Really?”

She hasn’t told him her second deduction, the one that rocked her back on her heels at the RiverCenter. She saves that for Izzy.

7

“Hey, Holly,” Izzy says. She sounds half asleep. “Tom said to fill you in, and I will, but right now it’s been a long day and I’m beat.”

“Try to get un-beat. I might know who the killer is.”

“What?”Izzy goes from fuzzy to wide awake. “Are you shitting me?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. Jerome told me two of the jurors committed suicide, but he said it probably didn’t have anything to do with the—”

“Yes. I mean no, it didn’t. Holly, if you’ve got something,give!”

Holly doesn’t need to look at the picture of the calendar page on her iPad; doesn’t even need to close her eyes. She sees it, along with every name: BOB, FRANK M., KENNY D., CATHY 2-T. And BRIGGS. Only BRIGGS is different. Not much, just enough.

“Can you look at the picture of Reverend Rafferty’s calendar? Do you have it?”

“Just a sec, I left my iPad in the kitchen.”

Holly has never been in Izzy’s apartment—at least not yet—but she imagines a narrow, easy-care kitchen and Izzy’s purse on the counter. Maybe next to an empty wine glass. She imagines Izzy herself in flappy and comfy cotton pajamas.

“Okay, I’ve got the calendar page. What about it?”

“Let’s start with Reverend Rafferty. I think he was nearsighted, but I think he was also vain. That’s more a guess than a deduction, but did you find glasses?”

“There was a pair in his bedside table, yes. Probably for reading.”

“Look at his appointments for May. Are you looking?”

“Yes. Get to it,please.”

Holly won’t be hurried, because she’s still explaining it to herself. “The names are all in caps, and slightly spread out.” In her mind she sees it: not FRANK M. or CATHY 2-T, but F R A N K M. and C A T H Y 2 - T. “He could do that, because the boxes for days of the month are quite big.”

“Yes. Seeing it.”

“But BRIGGS is different. More squeezed together. Not a lot, but it’s there. Jerome saw it, he just didn’t understand what it meant. Are you looking? Do you see?”

“I guess… yeah, you’re right.”

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