Sleep of the Innocent by Medora Sale Page A

alike. Their only contribution was that Ryan was capable of smashing his ex-girlfriend’s skull in if he hadn’t been in San Francisco that week. But none of them, not Kevin, not his three interchangeable sidemen, had ever seen or heard of a girl with black curly hair who called herself Jennifer Wilson. Lucas yanked the keyboard closer to him and started to write up a report. Maybe he’d get something to eat later.
    Lucas walked in the next morning to discover a major reorganization in workloads. Kelleher was now coordinating the investigation into the death of the Wilson girl. Lucas could feel the weight lifting from his shoulders. With luck, he might never have to face Mrs. Wilson again.
    â€œGreat,” he said. “Just watch the woman next door. She’ll strangle you in the world’s longest sentence.”
    â€œShe can’t be worse than my mother,” said Kelleher. “And I’ve survived thirty-five years of listening to her.” He got up and reached for his jacket. “I think I’ll be off and have a look at that rock band. I’d like to get them before they’re awake. I read the stuff you wrote up last night—anything left out as not suitable for Baldy’s tender ears?” Lucas opened his coffee and took out his Danish, shaking his head, and then stopped. “Yeah—there is one thing. I sent someone to check the prints in the Wilson girl’s apartment against my missing witness. Any results?”
    â€œYou haven’t seen them? Your witness’s prints are all over the place. The back room, the victim’s bedroom, everywhere. When you find her, I’d like a word. Like, where was she in the middle of the night?”
    Lucas turned his back on the rest of the room, put his feet up on the window ledge and worked on his breakfast while he considered the problem of finding Miss X. The chances were pretty good that her name was nothing like either Jennifer Wilson or Stormi Knight, so he might as well stop thinking of her as Jennifer. That, of course, explained why she didn’t react to being called by name. What had looked to him to be general contrariness and sulkiness had been simple unfamiliarity. So we call her X, he thought, taking a bite of Danish. And X is either a whore or a musician—or something else altogether. But let’s start, he continued to himself, by assuming she is one of those two things. Of course, he reflected, there is nothing to stop you from being both a whore and a musician at the same time. And where does that get us?
    All I need is a picture and a visit to Vice. That will take care of the prostitution end of things. Maybe. If she’s known to them. Or a picture and a lot of visits to places where local musicians hang out. He thought with a sinking heart of the hundreds of little bars and clubs in the city and suburbs where rock musicians played, and groaned aloud. “What’s wrong?” asked a passing constable of Kevin’s generation, and Lucas suddenly felt old. In the six years since he had been twenty-two, he had lost touch with the world of groups and teenage wonders.
    â€œWhere would you start looking if you wanted to find a singer with a rock group?”
    â€œAny singer? Or a particular one? I mean, if you want to hire a band—”
    â€œNo, I’m trying to track down a girl. A witness.”
    â€œThe witness you lost? I didn’t know she was a rock singer. I thought she was—”
    â€œYeah, well, let’s assume she’s a rock singer. I need a name for her. And maybe even an address. But I’ll take a name, to start with.”
    â€œTry the record stores. Those guys that work there, they know everybody. Here, start with the big ones—I’ll write them down for you,” and muttering energetically to himself the names of a host of establishments, he wrote furiously for a minute or two. “I don’t have the addresses, but