She dropped the cup. It splattered hot tea all over her, him, and the Virginia peanuts.
“Oh no, look what I’ve done. Oh no.” She was grabbing paper towels, wiping him down, finally on her knees, wiping up the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said, pulled off another paper towel and joined her. “It’s all right, Nick. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she said, staring down at that towel wet through with tea now.
“Hey,” an inspector said, coming around the corner, “who took that last donut?”
Dane laughed, just couldn’t help it. She didn’t.
“No can do,” Lieutenant Purcell said, standing in her doorway. “No clear and present danger to her. You know that our budget’s stretched to the limit, Delion. I’m sorry, but she’s on her own.”
Dane wondered if it was because she was homeless, and had less worth than someone who had a job and a bit of standing in the community. He didn’t say anything. He’d already known the answer would be no and he’d also known what he was going to do.
He hadn’t let Nick Jones out of his sight. She looked, quite simply, like she was ready to run. After he left the lieutenant, he went back to the small kitchen. She was still wiping up tea from the counter. “Enough,” he said, took her arm, and guided her over to Delion’s desk. Delion was in the lieutenant’s office. Dane could see him gesticulating through the glass windows. He sat her down, came down beside her on his haunches. “Okay, tell me why you freaked out when I told you I was FBI.”
“It was just a surprise, that’s all. Your brother is a priest. You’re at the other end of the spectrum.”
She’d had time to come up with an answer, not a bad one either.
“That’s true. What’s your real name, Nick?”
“My name is Nick Jones. Just look in the phone book, you’ll see there are tons of Joneses. Lots more Joneses than Carvers, that’s for sure.”
“How long have you been in San Francisco?”
“Not all that long.”
“Two, three weeks?”
“Something like that. Two and a half weeks.”
“Where did you come from?”
She just shrugged. “Here and there. I like to travel a lot. But it’s winter, so it’s best to stay in cities that don’t get all that cold.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Where’d you go to school?”
She didn’t say a thing, just looked down at her hands, chapped and dry, and her ragged fingernails. Dane sat back in the side chair, crossed his arms over his chest. Finally, she said, “We had a deal here. No questions about me. You got that, Agent Carver? No questions or I’m out of here. I figure you need me, so leave it alone. All right?”
“It’s too bad you feel that way,” Dane said. “I have the FBI behind me, and you knew my brother. If you’re in trouble, I can help you.”
Her head came up with that. She seemed stiff all over, but it was hard to tell with all those layers she was wearing. She said, “It’s your choice, Agent Carver.”
“All right.”
“What you need to do is find this man who killed Father Michael Joseph. Is there a death penalty in California?”
“Yes.”
“Good. He deserves to die. I was very fond of Father Michael Joseph, even though I only knew him for a short time. He cared about all of us, didn’t matter if you were rich or poor or a basically shitty person, he still cared.”
Delion came up, shaking his head at Dane. “I had to try again. No go.”
Dane said, “Inspector Delion means that there isn’t a safe house for you. Given that I firmly believe you need to be kept out of harm’s way, I’m taking you with me, back to my hotel. You’ll stay with me until we find this guy.”
“You’re nuts,” Nick said. “I’m homeless. No hotel would even let me through the door. Look at me, for God’s sake. I look like what I am. Besides, I don’t want to stay at a hotel. I’m just fine where I am.”
Delion said, “The FBI undoubtedly has a safe house in the area.”
“Nope, I don’t want to involve them in this. Trust me, Delion, you don’t either.”
“The camel’s-nose-under-the-tent sort of thing? That’s fine by me. We don’t want Ms. Jones to end up like Valerie Striker. I’m heading to a meeting with the chief now. We’re organizing a task force, then we’ll have more than enough manpower of our own to catch this creep.”