“Happens all the time,” Mike said. “The pimps encourage it as long as the girls turn over the money, or the jewelry, or whatever to them. Unfortunately, when a girl rolls a John, the John’s usually too embarrassed to report it. That means we don’t hear about the crime and there’s nothing the authorities can do about it.”

“So the diamond could have been stolen, one way or the other,” Delores clarified.

“That’s right,” Mike agreed.

“All right then,” Delores squared her shoulders. “We have to talk to one of the girls in the dead pimp’s stable.”

“First things first,” Mike told her. “First, we have to find out if Stella was right and he was a . . .” Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone to look at the display. “It’s Stella,” he said. “I’ve got to take this.”

They all watched as Mike got up and stepped into the kitchen for privacy before he answered his cell phone. The room went quiet as they listened to his end of the conversation, but Hannah quickly realized that she could learn nothing from his one-word replies.

“Will you feel better if he was a pimp, dear?” Delores asked her.

Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t, but maybe I will.” She looked at their puzzled faces and hurried to explain. “I know I shouldn’t feel better . . . morally, that is. A man is dead because of me and his character or lack of it shouldn’t change that fact.”

“But you might feel better?” Delores followed up on her earlier question.

“Maybe I would. And if I did, then that would be a fault in my character.”

Just then Mike came back into the living room, effectively taking Hannah off the hook. She didn’t want to answer any more questions from her mother about the dead man.

“He’s a pimp.” Mike confirmed it. “Stella showed the photo to Vice and a couple of them knew the dead man. They hadn’t seen him in the last couple of days and they were wondering what happened to him.”

“Do they know his name?” Hannah asked.

“Keith Branson. At least that’s what it said on his driver’s license when they pulled him over for running a red light.”

“But you have to show your birth certificate to get a driver’s license, don’t you?” Delores asked.

Mike smiled at her and Hannah knew he was thinking something like, What a babe in the woods you are! “They make fake birth certificates and they’re good forgeries,” he told her.

“I know they do,” Michelle said. “I have one. That’s how I got my fake driver’s license.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Mike said, and then he turned to Lonnie. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Lonnie asked. “I didn’t hear anything.”