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it was connected with the death of the John Doe in some way.
     

Chapter Six
    Back at the office, Elliot found an old case file that was remotely similar to what he and Dombrowski had encountered at Windhall Apartments, and he brought it back to his desk, where he began to flip through it. He hoped to gain some insight in reviewing how the case was solved. Captain Lundsford, Detective Lundsford then, had worked it. The victim, in this case, wasn’t exactly a John Doe—the information his fingerprints brought up hadn’t match the identification he carried—but it would have to do.
    Elliot was about halfway through the file when he heard a noise and looked up to see Detective Michael Cunningham knocking on the wall of his cube. He and Elliot had gone through the academy together, got to know each other, and now, whenever Cunningham went to the firing range or to the gym, he’d usually drag Elliot along with him. Elliot guessed Cunningham and Sergeant Conley were the closest things to friends he had around the department. He wasn’t unsociable. He just kept to himself most of the time.
    Cunningham was a good guy, and a good cop, though occasionally he liked to stay out into the early hours of the morning, making the club scene. He didn’t drink that much, but alcohol wasn’t what he was after when he went clubbing. Cunningham was a bit of a ladies’ man. That afternoon, he had a big grin on his face, like he’d just been on a date with a fashion model.
    “What’s up?” Elliot asked.
    “Some of us are stopping by Torchy’s after work, knock down a few beers, thought you might want to join us.”
    Elliot started to say no, he might have even gotten as far as shaking his head, but then he remembered wanting to talk to Sergeant Conley, and he began to entertain the idea. “What’s the occasion?”
    A curious look crossed Cunningham’s face, as if Elliot had said something he wasn’t expecting. After a moment, he laughed and said, “Nobody but you would say that. There’s no agenda.” He slapped Elliot on the shoulder. “You need to lighten up, buddy.”
    “Yeah,” Elliot said, “I know. By the way, how’s your dad?”
    Cunningham shoved some papers aside and sat on the desk. “Mean as ever. He asked about you. Just a ‘where’s your seedy friend’ type of thing, but at least it was something. Sometimes he’s easy to get along with and sometimes he isn’t.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “I don’t think he even knows who I am most of the time, just somebody who comes to visit.”
    “That’s not true,” Elliot said. “On some level he does. I’m sure of it.”
    Cunningham slid off the desk and shook his head. “I don’t know why that should make me feel better, but it does. Glad we had this little heart-to-heart.” As he was leaving he said, “You coming tonight or not?”
    “Yeah,” Elliot said, “I’ll be there.”
    He figured he would, too. Cunningham was right. He needed to get out more.
    A few hours later, Elliot walked into Torchy’s. The old case file hadn’t been much help, so he’d decided to make a short night of it. He didn’t see Cunningham or anyone else he recognized, but then he heard Sergeant Conley say, “Hey, Elliot. What’d you do, get lost and stumble in here?”
    Elliot walked over and pulled out a chair next to Conley, the sound of the wooden legs scraping across the concrete floor echoing loudly through the bar, and he made a mental note to raise the chair from the floor, if he decided to move it again.
    “About time you decided to be a little more sociable,” Conley said. “I was starting to worry about you.” He paused and gestured around the room. “I guess you already know everybody?”
    Elliot nodded. They were all uniformed officers, with the exception of Mendez, a new detective who’d moved to Tulsa from San Antonio. Mendez was leaning back, his chair balancing on two legs.
    “Cunningham asked me to stop by,” Elliot said. “It’d