A Killing Rain by P.J. Parrish

only one black man who works up there, but a couple days ago, another black man came.”
    “What day was that?”
    She asked him and looked back at Louis. “The other man came here on Monday in a black BMW.”
    “He’s sure it was a black BMW?” Louis asked.
    The girl nodded. “Grandpa loves cars. He is sure. He says he saw the second black man leave the next day. He had a suitcase in the trunk. He didn’t come back.”
    “How does he know?”
    The girl shrugged. “Grandpa sits here all day. He doesn’t like to be home because my baby brother cries a lot.”
    Louis ran a hand over his face. That meant Austin made an appearance at his office five days ago, left for Fort Myers a day later, and hadn’t been seen back here since.
    “Ask him if he ever saw a boy with the man,” Louis said. “A black boy.”
    The girl translated and turned back. “No, just the two men.”
    “Ask him if he saw anyone go in who looked...” Louis hesitated. “Who looked strange.”
    The girl frowned and spoke in Spanish again to her grandfather.
    “He saw...” she sighed. “He says he saw dos Yankis —- two white men —- go up there yesterday after lunch. Someone shut the blinds and then soon after, the white men came back out.”
    “Why did your grandfather think that was strange?”
    “They were wearing gloves.”
    “Gloves? It’s cold. Lots of people are wearing gloves.”
    “Yes,” the girl said, “but Grandpa says the men put on their gloves before they went into the office.”
    Louis hesitated, wondering where to go next. “Is there anything else?” he asked. “Can he remember what kind of car they had?”
    She asked and turned back to Louis. “He says it was a big, old blue Cadillac, with dark windows, you know, tinted? He says it looked like a car a drug dealer would drive.”
    “Anything else? Anything at all?” Louis asked the girl.
    She spoke again to her grandfather. She looked up at Louis and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”
    The old man started speaking again, pointing toward the parking lot across the street. He seemed to be upset about something.
    The girl looked contrite when she looked back at Louis. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He gets mad sometimes about things. Men broke into our home and stole some things once and now we have bars on the windows. Grandpa isn’t mad at you. He’s just mad at everyone.”
    The old man said something under his breath, pointing again at the lot. Louis heard the word Yankis again.
    “What did he say?” Louis asked.
    “He says he thought the Yankis had come to steal that car over there.”
    Louis looked to where the girl was pointing. There was one car in the lot of Pacific Imports beside the two police cruisers. It was an old Chevy Bel Air, red and black, and restored to its pristine 1953 condition.
    The old man was talking again, but his tone had changed. He was pointing toward the old car, speaking softly, reverently.
    “Grandpa said he had a car like that back in Cuba, only his was blue,” the girl told Louis.
    The old man muttered something.
    “What?” Louis asked the girl.
    She blushed. “He called the man a bad word. He said he hated seeing him touch that beautiful car.”
    Louis’s eyes shot back to the Chevy. Fingerprints? Damn, could they get that lucky? He turned back to the girl.
    “Thank you very much,” he said. “And thank your grandfather for me.”
    This time the girl smiled.
    Louis jogged back across the street, stopping at the tape that stretched across the lot. He was considering approaching the two uniforms when he saw Joe’s red Bronco pull up. She got out and came toward him, her shoulders hunched in the leather jacket, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her black jeans. She was wearing huge tortoise-shell sunglasses that covered a good part of her face. Her hair was back in its ponytail.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I was over at the station getting an update.”
    “No word on Austin Outlaw, I take it?”