Tolliver made a derisive sound, practically a snort. “Let’s see if we can talk to Pete Gresham,” he said, and I headed for the police department. There are two police departments in one building on State Line Avenue, the Texas and the Arkansas police. There are two different police chiefs. I don’t know how it all works, or who pays for what.

We found Pete Gresham working at his desk. We’d been given permission to go up to his office, and he was poring over a file on his desk, a file he shut when he saw us standing before him.

“You two! Good to see you! I’m sorry the tape didn’t pan out,” he said, standing and leaning over the desk to shake Tolliver’s good hand. “I hear you had a little trouble in Big D.”

“Well, the outskirts of Big D,” I said. “We were in the neighborhood, and we thought we’d stop by to ask what you knew about the anonymous caller who tipped you off about the woman who looked like Cameron.”

“Male, call came in from a pay phone.” Pete Gresham, a big man who was a little bigger every time I saw him, shrugged. He still didn’t wear glasses, but as Rudy Flemmons had told us, there wasn’t a hair on Gresham’s head. “Not much to tell.”

“Could we hear it?” Tolliver asked. I turned to look at him. That had come out of nowhere.

“Well, I’ll have to track the recording down,” Pete said. He got up and headed toward the elevator, and I said, “What made you think of that?”

“We might as well,” Tolliver said.

But Pete was back too quickly. I know my bureaucracies, and he couldn’t have found the recording that quickly. “Sorry, you two,” he said. “The guy who stores all that stuff is off today. He’ll be in tomorrow. Can I call you and play it over the phone to you?”

“Sure, that’d be fine,” I said. I gave him my cell phone number.

“You making a good living finding corpses?” he asked.

“Yeah, we do okay,” Tolliver said.

“Hear you stopped a bullet,” Pete said. “Whose toes did you step on?”

“Hard to say,” Tolliver said, and he smiled. “Matthew’s out of jail, by the way.”

The detective looked a lot more serious. “I forgot he was due to get out. He turn up in Dallas?”

I nodded.

“Don’t let him get you down,” Pete said. “He’s one of the bad ones. I’ve known guys like him my whole working life, and as a rule, they don’t change none.”

“I agree,” I said. “And we’re doing our best to keep away from him.”

“How’s those little sisters?” We were walking to the elevator now, and Pete was escorting us.