My jaw actually dropped. Susan Jones was a stripper? But Hooks wasn’t looking at me. She was inside her story and she kept going.
“Susan worked once in a while out of a club,” she said. “Never told me where, and I never asked for details because I didn’t approve. I was afraid for her, but she was strong-willed and it’s not for me to judge her. And she said this club was a decent place. Pfft.” Ronnie laughed with no joy. “The customers were businessmen, she said.”
Customers wearing jackets and ties wouldn’t have eased my mind if my sister were dancing, but Ronnie Hooks wasn’t done.
“The part that worried me,” she said, “was the owner of the club was some kind of drug dealer posing as a father figure. Or the way Susan put it, ‘He helps out girls who are trying to make new lives in America. Or girls like me, who need the money.’ Some of those girls danced in the shows with Susan. But some of them …”
She flipped a hand. I interpreted that to mean she didn’t want to say that they were prostitutes.
I said, “Ronnie, I want to be sure I understand. You’re saying you think Susan was dancing as a second job?”
I saw yes in her very frightened eyes.
“The big boss advanced her some money, and she was supposed to work it off. That’s what she told me. But now I think … he controlled them.”
“Ronnie, this is important. Did Susan ever describe him, or anyone at the club?”
“I think he’s from the Balkans or something. She just called him ‘the big boss,’ sometimes the nickname Mr. Big. But I heard her use the name Marko once, on the phone.
I said, “Might the boss’s name be Petrović? Did Susan ever say that?”
She shook her head no.
“Susan was afraid of him, and she said she wanted to keep me out of it. But she really couldn’t. She swore she wasn’t having sex with him or anyone, and so I gave Susan money to pay off this criminal before it came to that. I guess it wasn’t enough.”
I told Ms. Hooks that the department had assigned every available resource to finding Susan and that I would call her myself as soon as we had any information.
It wasn’t what Susan Jones’s sister wanted to hear. She grimaced as she grabbed her bag. Conklin opened the door for her. She was halfway down the hall when she turned and came back to the doorway with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Hooks looked straight at me and said, “Look. I don’t want to say this, because Susan warned me when I saw her last. She said, ‘Don’t go to the police.’ But she’d heard a rumor that really scared her. She heard that Mr. Big had killed a couple of girls who didn’t pay up, or who couldn’t perform—drugs, I assumed. Susan heard him joking about it.
“I think …,” Hooks said, “I think Susan’s friends were murdered.”
Susan’s sister bolted from the room. I heard the elevator bell ding. And she was gone.
CHAPTER 97
Conklin and I were filling out our reports when Jacobi stopped by our desks and rolled up a chair.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
I said, “We need another couple of teams, Jacobi. We’re nowhere on Myers and Saran. We’re nowhere on Lopez. I’m afraid Susan Jones is either dead or about to be. We did just get some very interesting background on Jones from her sister, and maybe a fuller picture of what Petrović is up to, how he’s making money, how these women fell into his trap. But still, we’ve got nothing but ghost sightings of Petrović.”
“It’s gotten too hot for him,” Conklin said. “He’s dodging us, playing a shell game with his car. He’s not at his usual haunts, and we don’t have enough eyes on the ground. And if we see him and pull him in for questioning, we don’t have any leverage. Unless we can follow some crumbs on what Susan’s sister told us, which could be something. Or it could be the TV-fueled theory of a desperate sister.”
“So,” I said, putting a lid on it, “that’s how it’s going.”
“It’s only been what, a week and a half since Myers?”
“More like two, Jacobi. Eleven days since Myers. Four days since Saran. Twenty-four hours, more or less, since Lopez. We cannot look under every rock, even with McNeil and Chi backing us up. Please. Get us some help.”
“I’ve turned out all my pockets, Boxer. But I’m here. Walk me through it. How do you see Lopez’s death linked to Tony’s Place?”
I said, “Guessing here. Lopez was some kind of witness. He may have seen Petrović buying drinks for the schoolteachers. He may have been seen talking to us.”
“So Lopez was put down before he could give up Petrović.”
I said, “Or maybe he was just a victim of circumstance. Drug addict needs some cash, strangles Denny for his wallet. Seems like a stretch, but that could have happened.”
Conklin added, “Either way, we still can’t put Petrović at any of the murders. Everything we think we know is pure speculation.”
Jacobi said, “I’m meeting with the chief tomorrow first thing. I’ll get on my knees and beg for more help on this case. And as you well know, the press isn’t giving us a break. But look. Two of you go get dinner and put it on my tab.”
I said, “That’s not necessary.”
“It’ll make me feel better, okay, Boxer?”
CHAPTER 98
Conklin and I walked our hunger pangs across the street to MacBain’s. We were putting down burgers and curly fries at a table near the jukebox.
Sydney refreshed our drinks and told us, “Take your time.”
Conklin said, “Mr. Big is Petrović. But try to pin a murder on him. It’s like harpooning a whale with a plastic fork.”
I nodded, opened my bun, and applied more ketchup.
Conklin and I had been partners for so long, a couple of words took the place of speeches.
I said, “Lopez. Petrović. Schoolteachers doing double duty as naughty girls.”
“You believed Tuohy?” Conklin said.
“He’s got an ugly personality, but I don’t think he’s stupid. Not stupid enough to leave bodies at his place of employment. What do you think?”
Conklin said, “I think Jacobi would want us to have beer.”
He raised his hand, and Sydney said, “Draft? Coming right up.”
Conklin said, “I haven’t seen Cindy in three days. It feels longer.”
“Me too with Joe.”
Conklin said, “Unless forensics ties Petrović to any one of our victims …”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I said, “Let’s turn it over again, look at it from a different angle.”
He said, “Okay. So here’s our new angle. Susan tells her sister that there’s a rumor. A foreigner with a no-name name killed a couple of women. We’ve got two hanged women and a pimp who was connected to one of the victims, turns up strangled.”
I had to lay down the details I’d been keeping back out of respect for Joe. It was time. I said, “Joe’s got pictures of Petrović in Bosnia. In one of them there’s hanged bodies of captives in Djoba. And apparently, he was good with throwing stars.”