Bonnie looked confused. “No, I mean—”

“He knows what you mean,” Sal said. “He’s being a smart ass.”

Bonnie smiled all the way. It was like the sun coming out. “Like half the people who come in here,” she said.

Sal didn’t doubt it. He asked, “You know something, Bonnie?”

“No, I’m listening.”

“No,” Sal said. “I mean do you know something we should know?”

“I know none of those murdered women was in here while I was on duty. The girls were too young, and their chaperone stayed dry to set a good example. They were an up-an’-up bunch. It’s tragic, what happened.”

“Nobody even came in the bar for a latte?” Harold asked.

“Nope. You gotta remember, they were only here one night.” She shrugged, smiling at about half amperage. “Sorry to be a dry fountain of knowledge.”

“A fella who kind of interests us did come in, though. Said he did, anyway. One of the paint convention people.”

“Plenty of them were in here,” Bonnie said.

“How about at guy named Craig Duke. Middle-aged, thinning brown hair, mighta had on a gray blazer, white shirt, pink tie.”

Something changed in Bonnie’s eyes, and she smiled. “Yeah, I know Mr. Duke. From the Midwest. Some kinda paint salesman. With the Glow View people.”

“Was he down here yesterday evening?”

“Sure. About six o’clock on.”

“On what?” Harold asked, not surprised that Bonnie’s account of last night was going to differ from Craig Duke’s. “Does that mean he was here till closing time?”

“No, no. I mean he just stayed here for a while.” Bonnie looked uneasy and her gaze shifted to the woman at the other end of the bar. What was going on here? She knew she’d better play straight with these two. And it wasn’t like she had something to hide. “He left around six thirty,” Bonnie said. “But he came back later.”

“Alone?”

Sighing, Bonnie said, “You probably oughta talk to Wanda Woman.” She motioned with her eyes, ever so slightly, toward the woman down the bar.

Sal added up the conversation and looked at Bonnie. “You’re kidding me? Wonder Woman?”

“Wanda. And it’s a nickname. She works this lounge on her own.”

“Works it, huh.” Sal was thinking. There’s a lot of vulnerability here. How best to use it to get to the truth? “She a barista, too?”

“Not hardly,” Bonnie said. “She’s not exactly a hotel employee.”

“Ah,” Harold said.

“Nobody’s pimping for her,” Bonnie assured them. “She says her real name is Wanda Smith.”

Sal sipped some seltzer. Waited. Letting Bonnie think about that vulnerability. About how she’d better level with the law. This was a homicide investigation. And the homicide was one of the worst this city had ever seen.

Harold was wearing his disinterested look. Yeah. Sure.

“You want the real story?” Bonnie asked.

“Yep”

“It won’t go no further?”

“We’ll do what we can,” Sal said. “But remember this is a murder investigation.”

“And a newsy one.” Bonnie pretended to be thinking it over, weighing options, knowing she’d better not be so vague about the times.

Finally she said, “Wanda came in with Mr. Duke about six o’clock, they had some drinks. He left here a little after six thirty. Then, a few minutes later, Wanda left.”

“Left just here, the bar, or the hotel?” Sal asked.

Bonnie shook his head. “I dunno. Couldn’t see from here even if I’d tried. Which I didn’t particularly wanna do, as I had no reason.”

“That you knew of,” Harold said.

Bonnie nodded. “That’s right.”

“Mr. Duke come back here alone?” Sal asked.

“Yeah. Well, not exactly alone. I mean, not with Wanda. He went to the desk, I heard to get a different room. He was spooked by something.”

Right after he saw the killer enter Andria Bell’s suite, Sal thought. So that part of his story holds.

“About seven forty-five Duke comes back, only not alone. He was with some other paint convention people. They came and went, hung around a while and got a good buzz on. Duke sort of stayed on the fringes. That’s all I know,” Bonnie said, “which ain’t much.”

Harold chewed his mustache. Sipped his espresso. Sal sat staring into his seltzer water.

Sal’s cell phone buzzed and danced against his thigh. He pulled it from his pocket, turning away, and glanced at the phone and saw that the caller was Quinn.

He walked half a dozen paces away so he wouldn’t be overheard and filled Quinn in on what he and Harold had discovered at the Fairchild.

After a few seconds, Sal broke the connection and turned back to Bonnie and Harold.

“Quinn?” Harold asked.

“Quinn,” Sal confirmed. “He’s a few blocks from here. Said to go ahead and start talking with Wanda Woman before she’s joined by somebody or leaves. He’ll be here in five or ten minutes.”

“Motion for Wanda Woman to come over here,” Sal said to Bonnie.

Then Sal said, under his breath, “Maybe we can find out why somebody’s story is a bunch of bullshit.”

But he had a pretty good idea why. Craig Duke didn’t want to be caught with his pants down with a prostitute, who didn’t want to be caught plying her trade, and was friends with or working for Bonnie the Barista, who didn’t want their relationship to become known. These people were worried about their reputations and jobs, maybe marriages.

Like this didn’t involve six dead women.

People and their secrets.

He watched Harold draw a fish.

14

Wanda looked uneasy when Sal and Harold identified themselves. But then lots of people looked that way when they met cops. For all she knew, they were from the vice squad, and everybody had a vice.

Sal took the bar stool next to her, and Harold stood on her other side, not trying to be openly intimidating with their closeness. Their presence should be sufficient.

Wanda Woman didn’t seem intimidated. More like amused. She looked at Sal, then glanced at Harold as if he were a worm. She had strong features framed by dark brown hair, and would have been tall even without her six-inch heels. Narrow-waisted, with a large bust and plenty of hip, there was a kind of force about her. Her unadorned black dress would have looked plain on most women. But then most women didn’t have her legs and cleavage.

“I’m minding my own business,” she said in a throaty voice that went with the dress and all the rest. Harold thought she was probably great at telephone sex.

“We’re not interested in your business,” Sal said. “We’re not with vice.”

“Oh, darn,” she said flatly. “I thought you were going to ask me to move on, just so you could see me move.”

Harold swallowed. Said, “Mrs. Robinson, are you—”

“Can it, Harold,” Sal interrupted.

“Is that straight vodka you’re drinking?” the one named Harold asked.

“Water.”

“Good for you.”

Wanda Woman looked slightly confused. These guys didn’t seem interested in her as a woman; they seemed to want to kill time.

“We only want to talk,” Sal said.

“Until you change your minds,” Wanda said with a wink. “What do you wanna talk about?”

Sal said, “Craig Duke, the paint salesman.”

Wanda smiled. “Is that what he does. He told me he worked for the government.”

“We all do, in a sense,” Harold said.

“This is about what happened to those poor girls,” Wanda said.

“And their chaperone,” Sal reminded her.

“Yeah. Some chaperone.”

“When it happened, you were with Craig Duke, in his room right across the hall.”

“Might’ve been. Truth is, I don’t know what happened when. We were about to start—secret agent Duke and me—when he said wait a minute, he thought he heard somebody knocking on the door.”

“Start what?” Harold asked.

“A game called find the key. It involves handcuffs and a—”

Quinn had come in. “I thought it was you two when I glanced in here,” he said.