Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan Page B

Sure, they didn’t know the make or model, but they did a search of all blue station wagons registered to people inside the perimeter. Why didn’t this guy show up? Did he take off by then?” Mitch said.
    At that moment, the Gods of Investigative Insight smiled on Connor. The dim shapes in his mind revealed themselves. “No,” Connor said. “The station wagon wasn’t registered to him. It was registered to a woman. They probably went to the house. She’s probably right there on the goddamn list. He’s a son or a brother or something, maybe even a boyfriend. That’s why he’s not easily recognized in the neighborhood, but he still has access. He’s transient. She was probably at work. He had the whole day to stash Claire while he figured out what to do next.”
    “You think he kept her in the house with this other woman?” Mitch asked.
    Connor shook his head. “I don’t know. At this point, I don’t think it really matters. If we can find her, we can get an ID on him.”
    “She may have moved by now,” Mitch said, but he emanated the same excited energy that presently made Connor unable to stand still.
    Connor met the older man’s eyes once again and could not suppress a smile. “You work the car. Narrow the make and model. I’ll check the list again and go from there. It might take a while to get addresses from information that’s ten years old, but I still want to track down the other guys Claire saw after she disappeared,” he said.
    Mitch beamed at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. “Fine work, Detective,” he said. “Damn fine work.”
    Connor drove back to the division, feeling heady and buzzed, high the way he felt whenever the job was going well, when an investigation hit a turning point. It was one of the things he loved about his job. It wasn’t an easy thing to deal with the bad guys day in and day out and face the things they had done, shoulder the responsibility of bringing them to justice. He had to fit all the pieces together, make sure the evidence was viable and that all the procedures were followed meticulously, so that when he handed a case over to the district attorney, they could look forward to a conviction. But when things came together, he felt exhilarated in a way nothing else in his life provided. His wife used to say he was “in the zone.”
    Connor parked and walked toward the door where two of the detectives from his division were standing, smoking cigarettes and talking shop. Boggs and Stryker. He’d worked with both of them on different cases, although they usually worked together. Where you found one, you’d find the other. The rest of the division liked to joke that they were together so much, they were practically married.
    Connor smiled at them when he approached. “Hey, if it isn’t my favorite couple,” he said.
    Stryker said, “Fuck you, Parks,” but smiled back.
    “Hey,” Boggs said. “Good luck next week with the review board.”
    Connor jammed his hands into his pockets. “Thanks,” he said.
    “That’s a bum rap,” Stryker said. “That fucker got what was coming to him.”
    “That’s a popular sentiment around here,” Connor replied. “But I’d hate to lose my badge over him.”
    Boggs took a long drag on his cigarette. “It’ll work out,” he said. “Worst case, they’ll put you on the desk for six months.”
    “Nah,” Stryker said. “Unpaid suspension.”
    Connor rocked back and forth on his heels. “Either way it sucks,” he said.
    Boggs grinned at him. “You’re a good egg, Parks. Riehl will go through the roof if he loses you. You had that piece of shit on five counts. The convictions would have gone through. You’ll never get out of here.”
    “Don’t go all sappy on me, Mrs. Stryker,” Connor said.
    “Hey, fuck you, Parks,” Stryker said again in Boggs’ defense.
    Connor laughed.
    “What are you working?” Boggs asked.
    “Cold case,” Connor said with a shrug. “Something to do besides typing reports for your