The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17 by Lisa Scottoline Page A

cash register, stuffing cash in his pockets, snatching two candy bars on his way out. Looked like Milky Way bars, maybe Snickers.
    Savary fitted his sunglasses back up and stepped over to Ojubi’s Barbershop. The four men outside, all over fifty, stopped talking. The barber, in a white smock and black pants, stood and stretched.
    â€œAfternoon,” Savary said.
    The barber nodded.
    â€œBack again, huh?” The barber was Willie Ellzey, who lived on Terpsichore Street but stayed with his woman on Eurphrosine, as he’d explained. Savary looked at the only man he hadn’t spoken to on his four previous canvasses, twice in the morning, twice in the evening.
    â€œI’m Joe Savary,” he told the skinny man with blue-black skin as dark as Savary’s. “I’m working on—”
    â€œJeanfreau.” The man didn’t look up. “We know.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    A pair of bloodshot eyes met his and the man said, “Joe Clay. You wanna see my ID?” The voice was harsh, challenging.
    â€œThat would be nice.” Savary pulled out his notebook as the man reached around for his wallet, took out his driver’s license. Savary copied down the details.
    â€œYou come around here often, Mr. Clay?”
    Savary got the same answers he’d been getting since he took over the case. No one saw anything or heard anything. No matter that Jack Hudson was a neighbor, had run the neighborhood grocery store since old man Jeanfreau died in 1968. It was as obvious as the nose on the detective’s face. A local boy did this, but no one was giving him up to the police. It didn’t even matter if Savary was raised three blocks away on Erato Street. The day he started the police academy was the day he’d left the neighborhood—permanently.
    He moved to the women. He’d spoken to some of them before, the two young men by the laundromat as well. One was the son of a fireman and was actually civil to Savary, the other barely mumbled responses. The two sitting on the dilapidated warehouse loading dock who pretended they weren’t watching Savary would not even look at him as he stepped up.
    â€œPolice,” he said to the taller of the two. Both were maybe twenty, both in white T-shirts and those long shorts with the crotch below the knees. “What’s your name?”
    Nothing.
    â€œStand up.”
    â€œSay what?”
    â€œStand up before I yank you up by your ears.”
    The taller one stood slowly and Savary, who towered over the man, patted him down.
    â€œMan, you can’t just search us,” said the shorter one.
    â€œI’m not searching your friend. I’m patting him down.
Terry versus Ohio
. Look it up. If a police officer has reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime, the officer can pat that person down for weapons. For officer safety as well.”
    Savary found something. “That a cell phone and a wallet?”
    The tall man nodded.
    â€œTake them out. Let’s see some ID.”
    The smaller one stood and raised his hands. Savary patted him down as well.
    â€œWhat crime we did?”
    Savary nodded to the large sign nailed to the wall of the warehouse which read POSTED—NO TRESPASSING .
    â€œI don’t write the laws. I just enforce them.” As Savary jotted down their names, addresses, cell-phone numbers before passing their IDs and cell phones back, he asked about Jeanfreau’s and received the usual information. Nothing. He called in their names, had both run through the police computer. Both had records, but no felonies and nothing around the neighborhood. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
    A tan Impala pulled up and Savary went around to the driver’s side to speak with his sergeant. Jodie Kintyre gleeked him over her cat-eyed sunglasses. It tickled Savary, because Jodie had wide-set, hazel, catlike eyes. She claimed