Page 71 of Backtrack

“You were listening?”

She gave a tight-lipped nod, chin quivering. “I came in at midnight to cover for Marsha. Chief Smith’s letting me go home at noon.”

Cutter wasn’t much of a hugger, but Nikki was like a daughter to him.

She stepped back, grabbing a tissue from the pocket of her uniform slacks to blow her nose. “Sorry. You were actually there. I got no right to be bawling like this.”

“You have every right, kiddo,” Cutter said. “It’s gotta be hard hearing everything that goes down on the radio. We forget sometimes.”

She nodded emphatically, sniffing back more tears.

“How’s LJ holding up?” she asked.

“About like you’d expect. He and Ewell went to the academy together.”

“We’ve gotta get those bastards!” Nikki spat. She bumped her chair out of the way and snatched a pink message memo pad from her desk, ripping off the top sheet. She dabbed at her nose with the wadded tissue while she pushed the paper to him with her free hand. “Carol Armstrong called from the middle school. Said she had a couple of names you were looking for.”

“Thank you.” Cutter reached for the paper, but Nikki held it tight between her thumb and forefinger.

“Promise me, Wayne,” she said, tears welling to the surface again. “Promise me you’re gonna catch them.”

“I—”

A familiar voice came from around the corner in the prisoner booking area, cutting him off. “We’ll get ’em,” Lafayette Johnson said. “I swear on a stack of bibles.”

“Thank you,” Cutter said to Nikki, taking the message. “This information should help.” He rounded the corner to find Johnson was leaning against the prisoner booking counter, toying with the fingerprint card frames. Cutter darkened, honestly concerned. “I thought you were going home to get some rest.”

“I’m too wired.” Johnson nodded at the slip of pink paper in Cutter’s hand. “It looks like we have some new leads.”

Cutter eyed him up and down. “How long have you been awake, twenty-six hours?”

“Hell, boss,” Johnson said. “Dungeons and Dragons came out my senior year. I stayed up longer than this all the time. Good for another eight, no problem.”

Nikki leaned out of the open top of the Dutch door that led to the Dispatch Office. “My brain is so fried I almost forgot. Two things. First, the judge signed your arrest warrant on Richard Lee Pink.” She handed him a legal envelope with the paperwork.

“What else?”

“Eastland County called about ten minutes ago. Hiram Deitrich, that rancher whose diamonds were stolen, his wife reported him missing this morning. Evidently, he went to talk to the TexSafe Armored car company in Fort Worth yesterday and still hasn’t come home. TexSafe swears they never saw him.”

Cutter sat down at his desk in the squad room. According to the attendance lady at the middle school, Ricky Lee Pink’s great-aunt, Holly Odom, had a farmhouse out on Zion Hill Road. Pink had listed it as his address of record when his parents moved to Texarkana. Mrs. Odom would likely be cooperative, but it was doubtful she would know anything. She’d moved into Shady Oaks Senior Care three months ago, probably to get away from her nephew.

Cutter hung up the telephone and stretched back in his chair, reading over his notes twice while he thought over his next steps. “We’ll divide and conquer,” he said at length. “LJ, you call Eastland SO. Tell them we need to talk to Mrs. Deitrich. Remember, you’re not asking permission. It’s a courtesy call.”

“Got it,” Johnson said. “Then what?”

“Shady Oaks Senior Care,” Cutter said. “Go sit down with Mrs. Odom. See what she can tell us about her nephew and any friends he likes to hang out with. I’ll poke around at her house on Zion Hill Road.” He held up the legal envelope. “This is the 5th Circuit, which means we can go into Pink’s address of record if we have an arrest warrant.”

“I’ll come with you,” Johnson protested.

“Not necessary. I’m sure he’s long gone by now.”

Johnson gave an exhausted smile. “That’s what you said before.”

“True enough,” Cutter said. “We still need to talk to Gerald Moffit. Set up an appointment with TexSafe for this afternoon. If they give you the runaround, get ahold of the armored car guards’ widows. Start with Mrs. Foster. She said Moffit planned to meet with her this morning to discuss financial help. Start with her and see if she knows where he’s going next.”

“You think Moffit has something to hide.”

Cutter shrugged. “The man’s ducking us. That tells me something. Remains to be seen what that something is.”