"Freeze frame?" said Kurtz.
Kennedy nodded and backed the video up until the car was frozen in the act of hitting the gate. Only the driver was visible, a man, long hair wild, but his face turned away and his body only a silhouette. The camera was angled to see license tags, but this car's rear tag looked like it had been daubed with mud. Most of the numerals and letters were unreadable.
"Attendant get a good look?" asked Kurtz.
"No," said Kennedy. "She was too startled. Male. Maybe Caucasian. Maybe Hispanic or even black. Very long, dark hair. Light shirt."
"Uh huh," said Kurtz. "There could have been another man on the floor in the backseat."
"Do you remember a second man?" asked Rigby.
Kurtz looked at her. "I don't know," he said. "I was just saying there could have been a second man in the back."
"Yeah," said Rigby. "And the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the trunk."
"Detective Kemper thinks it's a Pontiac, dark color, maybe late eighties, rust patches in the right rear fender and trunk," said Brian Kennedy.
"That narrows it down," said Kurtz. "Only about thirty thousand of those in Buffalo."
Kennedy gestured toward the frozen image and the license plate. "We've augmented this frame and think that there may be a two there on that tag, perhaps a seven as the last digit."
Kurtz shrugged. "You check Officer O'Toole's computer files? See if she has any pissed-off parolees?"
"Yes, the detectives copied the computer files and went through her filing cabinets, but" began Kennedy.
"We're pursuing the investigation with all diligence," said Rigby, cutting off Kennedy's info-dump.
Kennedy looked at Kurtz and smiled as if to say, man to man, Women and cops, whattayagonna do ?
"I'm going home," said Kurtz. Everyone stood. Kennedy offered his hand again and said, "Thanks for coming, Mr. Kurtz. I thank you for trying to protect Peg the way you did. As soon as I saw the video, I knew you weren't involved in her shooting. You were a hero."
"Uh huh," said Kurtz, looking at Rigby King. You left me there handcuffed all night so that an old man in a wheelchair could slap me around. Anybody could've killed me .
"You want a ride home?" asked Rigby.
"I want my Pinto back."
"We're finished with it. It's still in the Civic Center garage. And I have your clothes and billfold down in my car. Come on, I'll give you a ride to the garage."
Kurtz walked to the elevators with Rigby King, but before the elevator car arrived, Kennedy hustled out. "You forgot your portfolio, Mr. Kurtz."
Kurtz nodded and took the leather folder holding Gonzaga's paperwork listing seventeen murders unknown to the police or media.
CHAPTER TEN
"You know, Joe," said Rigby King, "if I searched you right now and found a weapon, you'd go in for parole violation."
Kurtz had nothing to say about that. The unmarked detective's car was like every other unmarked police car in the worldugly paint, rumbling cop engine, radio half hidden below the dashboard, a portable bubble light on the floor ready to be clamped onto the roof, and city-bought blackwall tires that no civilian anywhere would put on his vehicle. Any inner-city kid over the age of three could spot this as a cop car five blocks away on a rainy night.
"But I'm not going to search you," said Rigby. "You wouldn't last a week back in Attica."
"I lasted more than eleven years there."
"I'll never understand how," she said. "Between the Aryan Nation and the black power types, loners aren't supposed to be able to make it a month inside. You never were a joiner, Joe."
Kurtz watched the pedestrians cross in front of them as they stopped at a red light They were only a few blocks from the civic center. He could have walked it if he wasn't feeling so damned dizzy. Leaving the portfolio on the floor back at Kennedy's office showed Kurtz how much he needed some sleep. And maybe some pain medication. The pedestrians and the street beyond them seemed to shimmer from heat waves, even though it was only about sixty degrees outside today.
"When my husband left me," said Rigby, "I moved back to Buffalo and joined the force. That was about four years ago."
"I heard you had a little boy," said Kurtz.
"I guess you heard wrong," said Rigby, her voice fierce.
Kurtz held up both hands. "Sorry. I heard wrong."
"I never knew my father, did you?" said Rigby.
"You know I didn't," said Kurtz.
"But you told me once that your mother told you that your father was a professional thief or something."
Kurtz shrugged. "My mother was a whore. I didn't see much of her even before the orphanage. Once when she was drunk, she told me that she thought my old man was a thief, some guy with just one name and that not even his own. Not a second-story guy, but a real hardcase who would set up serious jobs with a bunch of other pros and then blow town forever. She said he and she were together for just a week in the late sixties."
"Must have been preparing for some heist," said Rigby.
Kurtz smiled. "She said that he never wanted sex except right after a successful job."