Sideswipe Read Free

the addresses he was dispatched to find. Gonzalez was willing and affable, and Hoke liked the kid, but Hoke knew that when he sent him out to do some legwork, an important function on cold cases, Gonzalez would spend most of his time lost somewhere in the city. Once Gonzalez had been unable to get to the Orange Bowl, even though he could see it from the expressway, because he couldn't find an exit that would get him there.
     
    Gonzalez had, however, prepared Hoke's income tax return, and Hoke had received a $380 refund. Gonzalez had also prepared Ellita's Form 1040, and she had received a refund of $180 when she had expected to pay an additional $320, so they thenceforth both admired Gonzalez's ability with figures. Hoke had given Gonzalez responsibility for the time sheets and mileage reports, and they had had no trouble in getting reimbursed. Beyond this, however, Hoke didn't know quite what to do with Gonzalez and the fifteen new supps that had been deposited in his in-box the day before.
     
    These supps all represented new cold cases which, in Hoke's opinion, were still too warm to be considered inactive. What these cases really were were difficult cases that other detectives in the division considered hopeless. But they were also much too recent to be hopeless, as Hoke had discovered by glancing through them yesterday afternoon. Hoke was getting them via interoffice mail because Major Brownley had put a notice on the bulletin board directing detectives in the division to turn over all of the cold cases they were currently working on to Sergeant Moseley. These new cases, added to the ten Hoke had selected already from the back files to work on, because they had possibilities, were not, in Hoke's opinion, beyond hope. Even his cursory reading of the new supps had indicated that the detectives could have done a lot more work on them before putting them on his back burner. What it amounted to, Hoke concluded, was a way for these lazy bastards to clear their desks of tough investigations and shift them over to him and Gonzalez. All fifteen supps had yellow tags affixed to the folders, meaning that there was no statute of limitations on these crimes because they were homicides, rapes, or missing-person cases. Hoke realized that his desk would be the new dumping ground for more and more cases from detectives who had run out of routine leads and gotten down to the gritty part of thinking about fresh angles that were not routine. The chances were, he thought gloomily as he finished his coffee and put the cup on the magazine table next to the La-Z-Boy, that there would be a few more of them in his in-box when he got down to his cubbyhole office on the third floor of the Miami Police Station.
     
    Hoke stopped thinking about this new idea. Then he stopped thinking altogether, closed his eyes, and sat back in the chair.
     
    The girls got up. (They shared a bedroom, Ellita had the master bedroom, and Hoke had the tiny eight-by-six-foot bedroom that was originally supposed to be either a den or a sewing room at the back of the house next to the Florida room.) They used the bathroom, took their showers, and fixed their breakfasts. They jabbered with Ellita out in the Florida room but didn't disturb Hoke when they saw him with his eyes closed, sitting in his chair. At 7:4 5, Sue Ellen kissed Hoke on the forehead (he apparently didn't feel it) before getting on her moped and riding off to work at the Green Lakes Car Wash. Ellita and Aileen washed and dried the dishes in the kitchen, and then, at eight o'clock, Ellita touched 1-Joke's bare shoulder gingerly, told him the time, and said that the bathroom, if he wanted it, was clear again. But Hoke did not reply.
     
    At eight-thirty Ellita said to Aileen:
     
    "I think your father's gone back to sleep in his chair. Why don't you wake him and tell him it's eight-thirty? I know he has to work because he told me last night he had fifteen new supps to read through today."
     
    "It's