“No, Detective Kowalski’s in charge. He’s Homicide.”
Julia hated the institutional runaround, which had also happened with Mike’s murder back in Philadelphia. “Well, do you exchange information with him at all?”
“I’ll pass along what you ladies tell me here today. But he doesn’t update me. He’s busy and he doesn’t have time for phone tag.”
“So you’ll ask him about the tire imprint?”
“I said I’d pass it along, so I will.” Chief Glushenko frowned, newly testy.
Courtney interjected, “The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was a lead we came up with, a basket missing from my grandmother’s house.”
Chief Glushenko lifted a skeptical eyebrow, and Courtney launched into the explanation about the missing basket. Chief Glushenko listened coolly.
“So what do you think?” Courtney asked, when she was finished. “I know you don’t want to speculate, but it does seem like a good lead, doesn’t it?”
“You’re speculating.”
“How? The basket is gone. It was taken.”
“Your grandmother could’ve decided to throw the junk out.”
“It wasn’t junk to her.”
“Did you check the trash?”
“No, but she wouldn’t have thrown it out.”
“See,that’sspeculation. She coulda decided to clean house. Spring cleaning, like my wife. Last week she threw out my favorite sneakers.” Chief Glushenko shook his head. “They were perfectly broken in.”
Julia didn’t think they were getting anywhere, but she had a last nagging thought. “Chief Glushenko, we understand that theneighboring farm was the site of a murder about thirty years ago. It was owned by a McKenna, who disappeared. A drifter named Shoemaker was killed, and his body was found in the well. Do you know anything about that?”
Chief Glushenko nodded. “That’s a cold case.”
“Did you investigate?”
“No. Homicide did.”
“Was that Detective Kowalski’s as well?”
“No, it was too long ago. He’s new. It was another detective.”
“Do you remember his name?” Julia felt like she was pulling teeth.
“I want to say Kovich, but he died.” Chief Glushenko paused. “Why?”
“There’s not that many murders in Buckley.”
“There’s not that many people, either. We’re down to two hundred.”
“Still it seems unusual that two murders occurred on adjacent properties. We’re wondering if they’re related.”
“Why would they be? They’re almost three decades apart.”
Julia let it go. “There must be a case file. Where is it?”
“Archives. We have to retain them on murder cases.”
“Can we get it?”