"We're working on it. Believe that, Mr. Boyle."
"How's Jimmy holding up?" Sean asked.
"Hard to tell." Dave looked at Sean, happy to tear his eyes away from Sergeant Powers, something in the man's face he didn't like, the way the guy peered at you like he could see your lies, every one of them as far back as the first one you ever told in your goddamned life.
"You know how Jimmy is," Dave said.
"Not really. Not anymore."
"Well, he still keeps it all in," Dave said. "No way to tell what's really going on up in that head of his."
Sean nodded. "The reason we came by, Dave?"
"I saw her," Dave said. "I don't know if you knew that."
He looked at Sean and Sean opened his hands, waiting.
"That night," Dave went on, "I guess it was the night she died, I saw her at McGills."
Sean and the cop exchanged glances, and then Sean leaned forward, fixed Dave in a friendly gaze. "Well, yeah, Dave, that's actually what brought us here. Your name showed up on a list of people were in McGills that night to the best of the bartender's recollection. We hear Katie put on quite a show."
Dave nodded. "She and a friend did some dancing on the bar."
The cop said, "They were pretty drunk, huh?"
"Yeah, but?"
"But what?"
"But it was a harmless kinda drunk. They were dancing, but they weren't stripping or nothing. They were just, I dunno, nineteen. You know?"
"Nineteen and getting served in a bar means the bar loses its liquor license for a while," Sergeant Powers said.
"You didn't?"
"What's that?"
"You never drank underage in a bar?"
Sergeant Powers smiled, and the smile got into Dave's skull the same way the man's eyes did, as if every inch of the guy was peeping.
"What time would you say you left McGills, Mr. Boyle?"
Dave shrugged. "Maybe one or so?"
Sergeant Powers wrote that down in a notebook perched atop his knee.
Dave looked at Sean.
Sean said, "Just crossing out t's and dotting our i's, Dave. You were hanging with Stanley Kemp, right? Stanley the Giant?"
"Yeah."
"How's he doing, by the way? Heard his kid caught some kind of cancer."
"Leukemia," Dave said. "Couple years back. He died. Four years old."
"Man," Sean said, "that just sucks. Shit. You never know. It's like one minute you're cruising on all cylinders, the next, you turn a corner, catch some weird disease in the chest, die five months later. This world, man."
"This world," Dave agreed. "Stan's all right, though, considering. Got a good job with Edison. Still shoots hoop in the Park League every Tuesday and Thursday night."
"Still a terror under the boards?" Sean chuckled.
Dave chuckled, too. "He do use those elbows of his."
"What time would you say the girls left the bar?" Sean said, his chuckle still trailing away.
"I dunno," Dave said. "The Sox game was winding down."
What was up with the way Sean slid that question in? He could have just asked it up front, but he'd tried to lull Dave with talk of Stanley the Giant. Hadn't he? Or maybe he'd just asked the question as it had occurred to him. Dave couldn't be certain either way. Was Dave a suspect? Was he actually a suspect in Katie's death?
"And that was a late game," Sean was saying. "In California."
"Huh? Ten-thirty-five, yeah. So, I'd say the girls left maybe fifteen minutes before I did."
"So we'll say twelve-forty-five," the other cop said.
"Sounds about right."
"Any idea where the girls went?"
Dave shook his head. "Last I saw of them."
"Yeah?" Sergeant Powers's pen hovered over the pad on his knee.
Dave nodded. "Yeah."
Sergeant Powers scribbled in his pad, the pen scratching against the paper like a small claw.
"Dave, you remember a guy throwing his keys at another guy?"
"What?"
"A guy," Sean said, flipping through his own notebook, "name of, uh, Joe Crosby. His friends tried to take his car keys. He threw them at one of them. You know, all pissed off. You there for that?"
"No. Why?"
"Sounded like a funny story," Sean said. "Guy's trying not to give up his keys, he throws 'em anyway. Drunk's logic, right?"
"I guess."
"You didn't notice anything unusual that night?"
"How you mean?"
"Say someone in the bar maybe wasn't watching the girls in a real friendly manner? You've seen those guys? the ones look at young women with a kind of black hate, still pissed off they sat home the night of the prom and here it is fifteen years later and their lives still suck? Look at women like it's all their fault. You know those guys?"
"Met a few, sure."
"Any of those guys in the bar that night?"
"Not that I saw. I mean, I was watching the game mostly. I didn't even notice the girls, Sean, until they jumped up on the bar."
Sean nodded.
"Good game," Sergeant Powers said.
"Well," Dave said, "you had Pedro up there. Could have been a no-hitter, it wasn't for that bloop in the eighth."
"Got that right. Man earns his pay, don't he?"
"Best there is in the game today."
Sergeant Powers turned to Sean and they both stood at the same time.
"That's it?" Dave said.
"Yes, Mr. Boyle." He shook Dave's hand. "We appreciate your help, sir."
"No problem. Happy to."
"Oh, shit," Sergeant Powers said. "I forgot to ask: Where'd you go after you left McGills, sir?"
The word popped out of Dave's mouth before he could stop it: "Here."
"Home?"
"Yup." Dave kept his gaze steady, his voice firm.
Sergeant Powers flipped open his pad again. "Home by one-fifteen." He looked up at Dave as he wrote. "Sound right?"
"Roughly, sure."
"Okay then, Mr. Boyle. Thanks again."
Sergeant Powers made his way down the stairs, but Sean stopped at the door. "It was real good seeing you, Dave."
"You too," Dave said, trying to remember what it was he hadn't liked about Sean when they were kids. The answer wouldn't come, though.
"We should grab a beer sometime," Sean said. "Soon."
"I'd like that."