I nodded slowly, but made no other reply.

O’Connor got back to business. “Any chance her mom will change her mind soon?”

“I doubt it. I’ll probably have a better chance of catching her molester, at least, Judy Douglas’s, by hanging out with Joey.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Then he corrected me. “We’ll have a better chance of catching the slimewads. You’re not a solo act.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. O’Connor,” I replied. “I’m doing another job for Joey tonight.” I told him how Joey wanted me to set up Zeke and steal everything but what incriminated him. “So if you hear about a B&E at Heart of Desire, come bail me out,” I finished.

“Try not to get caught. The cops aren’t your main worry.”

“Trust me, I know that.” After that there wasn’t much else to say, at least not about Joey and scared children and obscene pictures of them. I took a sip of my coffee. “Do you have kids?” I asked O’Connor.

“Three girls. One boy. Gina, my oldest, she wants every brass ring there is. She’s twenty-two and starting a double-degree program, law and MBA. She’s always giving me and Em advice about money. Sometimes I take a look at her and wonder where this kid came from.

“Maria’s my second. Nothing like Gina. She wants to be a cop the way I wanted to be a cop when I was her age. She’s getting her criminal justice degree, works out every day, and she gives me advice about what I should do. ‘Dad, you heard about the latest in DNA fingerprinting?’ Part of me thinks it’s great and part of me goes, wait a minute, I’m not supposed to be teaching my daughter how to take out a perp. She doesn’t seem to have time to date guys.”

“Girls?” For some reason, I was determined to push it today.

O’Connor looked at me. “I know what you’re thinking and…and who knows? Maybe. She’s just eighteen. Did you know when you were eighteen?”

“I knew.”

“It’ll be hard for her to be a cop if she is.”

“There’s that.”

“How’d you tell your parents?”

“My parents are dead.” My father was, my mother might as well be.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, my coming out didn’t kill them.”

“Glad to hear it. If any one of my kids kills me, it’ll be Robby, my boy. He pulls every knuckleheaded stunt a teenager can. Leaves a beer can in the car, Playboymagazines under his bed. Not only is he too stupid not to do stuff like this, but he’s too stupid not to get caught at it. He has a different girl every week, and the skirt’s always a little tighter and the lipstick a little redder.” O’Connor shook his head.

“If it’s just beer and Playboy,he’s not doing too badly.”

“No, I guess not. Some fifteen-year-olds are on heroin.” He sighed.

“I’ll make a deal with you. If I see any of your daughters around the gay girl hangouts, I won’t call you up and say, ‘Hey, Tim, I saw your daughter down at the lesbo bar sucking up Dixie longnecks with a couple of biker gals.’ I promise not to do that. Even if I do see them.”

“Did I tell you I could also see you as a murder victim? Particularly when you run your mouth off like that?”

“That’s been brought to my attention before,” I replied, then prompted him, “I thought you had three daughters?”

“Yeah, I do. Deidre’s eleven. She’s…special. You want to meet her?” he suddenly asked. “Em’s got a teachers’ meeting today, so I get chauffeuring duties.”

We got up, fishing in our pockets for tip change and then headed out of the coffee shop.

“Could I get you to play a hunch for me?” I asked as we crossed the street to O’Connor’s car.

“Yeah? What do you need?”

“A license plate check. A car I saw around my client. I’d like to run it through.”

O’Connor opened his car and we got in. I handed him a piece of paper with Ted’s tag number on it.

“I guess I can do that,” O’Connor said as he put the piece of paper in his jacket pocket.

“Thanks. Sometimes you have to try your hunches.”

“No matter how many dead ends you run into,” O’Connor commented sardonically.

We drove for a while in silence. O’Connor had his police radio turned on, its rasp a constant background drone. He pulled in front of a large house. Several children were waiting out front. I could hear the sound of others playing in the background. I could see some of the kids in the back, running and playing. They looked young, preschool. O’Connor crossed the yard to the front door.

Suddenly, one of the children broke away and screamed, “Daddy!” She ran with an awkward choppy gait. Then I noticed she had braces on her legs. O’Connor swept her up in his arms. He swung her around and then eased her down while he talked to a woman at the door. His daughter had her arms wrapped around his waist as if she was extravagantly happy to be with him. Then, taking her in hand, he led her to the car. She wore thick, heavy glasses, the kind that, on a child of eleven, labeled her as other, something wrong.

“Deidre, this is a friend of mine,” O’Connor introduced us. “Her name is Micky Knight.”

“Hello, Deidre,” I said.

“Hi,” she said very briefly, before ducking her head shyly. Then in her choppy run, she sped around the car and got in the passenger side.