Out Cold by William G. Tapply

buy my own damn boat all over again?” he said. “And what the hell are you talking about, the Winnipesaukee cottage?”
    â€œSit tight,” I told him. I hit the hold button, then looked at Julie and said, “What is it?”
    â€œDetective Mendoza is here,” said Julie. “She says it can’t wait.”
    â€œIs it about?…”
    She shook her head. “She didn’t tell me anything. Nobody ever divulges anything to the secretary.”
    â€œI do,” I said. I hit the hold button and said, “Howard? You still there?”
    â€œBet your ass I’m still here,” he said.
    â€œI’m going to have to get back to you.”
    â€œMake it snappy. I want to get this done.”
    I hung up the phone. “Okay,” I said to Julie. “Send her in.”
    I stood up when Saundra Mendoza came into my office. She was wearing black pants and a red sweater and big silver hoops in her ears. Her black hair hung halfway down her back in a braid.
    Right behind her was a skinny guy, mid-forties. He had straw-colored hair and a receding hairline. He was wearing a brown suit and a green necktie. Mendoza’s partner, I guessed.
    â€œSergeant Hunter,” she said. “Mr. Coyne.”
    He reached out and we shook hands.
    Mendoza plopped her attaché case on my desk and sat in one of the client chairs. Hunter sat in the one beside her.
    I sat across the desk from them. “You’re probably not collecting for the Police Athletic League today,” I said.
    Hunter frowned. He didn’t know me well enough to figure out when I was joking.
    I shrugged. “Have you got some news on my dead girl?”
    Mendoza shook her head. “Do you know a woman named Maureen Quinlan?”
    â€œSunshine,” I said. “Yes. She’s a client. What about her?”

Six
    Saundra Mendoza looked down at her lap and shook her head.
    â€œDon’t tell me,” I said.
    She shrugged. She didn’t have to tell me. Mendoza was a homicide detective.
    â€œThey called her Sunshine because she never smiled,” I said. “Because she was so gloomy all the time. Like calling a tall guy Shorty, you know?”
    Mendoza looked up at me and nodded.
    â€œJesus,” I muttered.
    She nodded again.
    Sgt. Hunter nodded also. He looked at me with his eyebrows lifted, as if he were about to speak.
    I waited. Hunter shrugged and said nothing, so I said, “What happened?”
    â€œNo,” said Mendoza. “I’m gonna ask the questions. Skeeter Cronin said Mrs. Quinlan talked to you a couple nights ago. Said you agreed to be her lawyer. Tell me what you talked about with her.”
    I told her about meeting Sunshine—Maureen Quinlan—at Skeeter’s on Tuesday evening, how she’d told me her sad story, how I’d been making some phone calls for her. And I told her how Sunshine had agreed to ask around about the dead girl. “I had Julie make a bunch of three-by-five copies of that morgue shot you gave me,” I said. “I gave copies to some homeless people I know, hoping maybe they could help me figure out who she was.”
    Saundra Mendoza had a little notebook opened on her knee. She was taking notes in it with a ballpoint pen. Sgt. Hunter just watched my face. I couldn’t read his expression. Boredom, maybe.
    Mendoza looked up at me. “You gave Mrs. Quinlan a photo?”
    â€œI figured, if the girl was a runaway, maybe—”
    â€œI get it,” she said. “She didn’t have any photo on her when we found her. Nor was there one in her stuff at the Shamrock.”
    â€œMaybe she lost it,” I said. “Or just threw it away.”
    â€œMaybe,” she said. “Still, seems like a coincidence.”
    â€œBetween Sunshine and the girl in my backyard? Between me asking her to see what she could find out, giving her that photo, and…and what happened to her?”
    â€œMaybe it is