Max Collins - Target Lancer

I gave him a sharp glance. “Has Jean been notified?”

“You do know this isn’t my case? That I work for the sheriff? I would imagine she hasn’t been notified yet. Chicago PD policy on an out-of-towner DOA is to contact the local police, so that somebody from the Milwaukee department can deliver the news personally. Not cold, over the phone. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

I sighed, nodded. “Not a buddy. You can see I’m not shedding any tears. Not like the one I’d shed for you, Dick.”

This earned me a wicked half smile. “Single solitary tear? That’s what I’d rate?”

“I think a tear would cover it.” I nodded to the grotesque display that was all that remained of Tom Ellison. “But this was a nice guy, an honest guy, particularly compared to the two of us … and I don’t make him for the type who’d have a doxy up to his room.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio,’” Cain said, “‘than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’”

“That’s ‘dreamt,’ Dick, and fuck you.”

He laughed a little, not overdoing it. He spread an arm, like a ringmaster introducing a high-wire act, the hand with the Dunhill making smoke trails.

“Well, Nate, let’s look at the evidence. Over on the dresser, that’s an ice bucket and an empty bottle of champagne. In the john, there’s a rubber wrapper. On the nightstand, lipstick traces on a glass and ciggies. At the foot of the bed, trousers apparently taken off hastily, dumped. On the bed a guy in his shorts who is dead and not of natural causes.”

“What story does that supposedly tell?”

“The lead homicide dick, Mulrooney, thinks your friend had a girl up to his room … not a very nice girl … and they shared champagne, and they played some night baseball, after which Mr. Ellison nodded off to sleep.”

“So a pickup, then, maybe in the hotel bar. Not a call girl?”

“Right. A hustler who plays lonely secretary or stranded stewardess or whatever the hell, and they go upstairs for nookie, have some, and cuddle up.”

“And while Tom dozes, in postcoital exhaustion, the not-nice girl is helping herself to his wallet, and then Tom wakes up…”

“… and is displeased, and gets physical, and his little guest grabs an ice pick, and punches his time clock.”

I thought about that. It stunk, but I didn’t say so.

He read me, though: “Hey, it’s not my theory. It’s just what the homicide boys came up with to close out the case in ten seconds.”

“Least they’re making an effort. Have they bagged the ice pick?”

“Wasn’t here.”

“Then what makes them so sure an ice pick was the murder weapon?”

Dick smirked at me, the milky eye taking the edge off his otherwise handsome face. “It’s what we call in the trade an educated guess, Nate, based on a couple of things.… Don’t tell the coroner’s guys I did this.”

He leaned in and over and lifted Tom’s T-shirt, having to tug it up some to get past-and expose-the fatal wound. It was a small puncture in the midst of blondish chest hair with very little blood-a stab right through the sternum. Dick let me study the wound a while, then pulled the T-shirt down back into place.

“Add to this,” he said, “the fact that every ice bucket in this hotel is delivered with an ice pick. Only here we have an ice bucket, but no pick.”

“And they figure she took the ice pick with her, when she skedaddled, to dispose of.”

“Isn’t that what sewer drains are for?”

From the door, a mellow, world-weary voice intoned, “Excuse me, gentlemen-would you mind clearing the crime scene while I have a look?”

The slender, somber, narrow-faced, retirement-age guy in glasses-tortoiseshell frames-apparently knew Dick Cain, and assumed I was just another cop. After all, plenty of cops in Chicago could afford a Louis Goldsmith suit.

“Not at all, doc,” Cain said. “I’m just a kibitzer from the sheriff’s department. Heller here has confirmed identification of the body.”

The doctor nodded at us and came in. He had a black medical bag handy. Like it would do Tom any good.

I said, “Doctor, uh…?”

“Owens,” he said. “Clarence Owens.”

We skipped the handshake ritual. He was standing just inside the door with the Gladstone bag fig-leafed before him, held in both fists.

“Dr. Owens,” I said, “when you run the postmortem I’d like to know what the angle is on that wound. Chief Cain here thinks it’s an ice-pick wound.”

Owlish eyes blinked behind the glasses. “I don’t recognize you, detective.”

“I’m Nate Heller.”

“Oh. Nathan Heller. The private detective.”

“Forgive the dumb question, doctor, but can you tell whether the deceased had sex recently before he died?”

He went over near the bed and the corpse. “Well, there seems to be dried semen residue on the front of his shorts.”

“So he did have sex shortly before he died.”

His tone and expression were dry as day-old toast. “A lot of men in hotel rooms alone ejaculate, Mr. Heller.”

Cain offered, “There’s a Playboy on the dresser.”

“Some of us read it for the articles,” I said.

“But,” the doctor put in, “we can check the deceased’s pubic region for female pubic hairs and secretions.”

Cain said, “We believe a condom was used. Wrapper found on the john floor.”

“Even so, there might be evidence of intercourse. Still, it’s an inexact science.”

“Sounds pretty exact to me,” I said.

The doctor shook his head. “We don’t know that the deceased didn’t bathe or wash himself off, after having sex.”

“The homicide detectives think a prostitute did this, and he would probably have waited till she left to wash up.”

The owlish eyes were unimpressed. “We can’t know that. But I can see that you have an interest in this case, Mr. Heller. When I have anything, I’ll give you a call at your office.”

“If I’m not in, ask for Lou Sapperstein.”

That got something resembling a smile out of him. “I remember Lou from the old days. Is he still working?”

“When he feels like it.”

“Sure, Mr. Heller. Glad to. Friend of yours, the victim?”

“Business acquaintance. A very nice guy.”

“In my job, whether they were nice or not is, sadly, seldom relevant. You’ll be hearing from me, Mr. Heller.”

I thanked him, and then I suggested to Dick that we get out of the way of the investigators whose job this actually was. He agreed.

Soon we were sitting in the Coffee House, the blandly modern Pick-Congress eatery off the fancy lobby. A no-nonsense waitress with a lady-wrestler demeanor immediately tried to force coffee on us, but we were spoilsports-being strictly an after-dinner coffee drinker, I had iced tea; and Dick, who I’d never seen touch java, had a bottle of Coke with a glass of ice. She was not happy with us-the lunch crowd would be here soon, and we were taking up a booth.

“So,” I said, “my business card was in his wallet.”

“That’s right. Had you seen Tom Ellison lately?”

“I had, but it was strictly social,” I lied. “We had a beer at the Berghoff Friday afternoon, and just caught up with each other. I think maybe he was fishing for some business.”

“But in a sociable way.”

“That’s right. I hadn’t used him for publicity for a couple years-why go to Milwaukee, when there are so many good people here at home?” I squeezed a lemon slice into the iced tea. “Will I be hearing from those homicide dicks? Will they want a statement?”

“Not unless I advise them to.” He shrugged. “That guy Mulrooney, he knows you and me are Siamese twins. He saw that business card and gave me a call, and I came right over. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t jammed up in this thing, somehow.”