After another long pause and a few more drags, she said, “I guess it was last week. They picked up their papers on Wednesday, like everyone else.”

“‘They’?” I asked.

“Yeah. Mitch and his friend Denny. They’re kind of like a —”

She stopped short then and turned slowly to look at me. It seemed maybe she’d just put two and two together about something. Or maybe I should say one and one.

“Oh God,” she said. “They’re kind of like a team. They’re the ones, aren’t they?”

I could feel that mental click, when something falls into place. Had I just found my Steven Hennessey?

“What’s Denny’s last name?” I asked her.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “He’s white, tall, and thin. He’s got lots of stubble, and kind of a —” She waved her hand under her jaw. “Like a sunken chin, I guess you could call it. He sort of leads Mitch around.”

“And you say they pick up papers on Wednesday?”

She nodded. “Sometimes they come back for more if they sell out, but I haven’t seen them lately. I swear. I know this is serious now.”

“I believe you,” I said. Everything about her demeanor had changed. Now she looked more sad than anything. “Any idea where I might look for the two of them?”

“All over. Denny has this old white Suburban he drives around, when he can get gas. I know they sleep in there sometimes.” The Suburban was a dead end now, but I didn’t say anything about it to Ms. Brophy.

“And you can try the shelters. There’s a list of them in the back of the paper.” She took a copy off the top of her stack and handed it to me. “God, you know, I hate myself for telling you all this.”

“Don’t,” I said, and paid her a dollar for the paper. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Finally.

Chapter 82

AFTER A LONG DAY of canvassing homeless shelters and soup kitchens, I wasn’t any further along than I’d been that morning. For all I knew, Talley and Hennessey were still in New Jersey. Or gone to Canada. Or up in smoke.

But when I went back to the office for some files to bring home, Jerome Thurman caught me at the elevator with some news.

“Alex! You heading out?”

“I was,” I said.

“Maybe not anymore.”

He held up a page from some kind of printout. “I think maybe we’ve got something here. Could be good stuff.”

Normally, Jerome works out of First District, but I’d gotten him a space in the Auto Theft Unit down the hall, where he could monitor vehicle leads for me. And by “space,” I mean a stack of crates in their Records Room where he could set up his laptop, but Jerome’s never been a complainer.