FROM GIL TANNER’S CASE NOTES: Occasionally, the mystery I relate here was not mine, per se (as the shysters tend to say). I just got tangled up–voluntarily or involuntarily–in the events of the case. This was one of those.
A Slight Case of Exsanguination
January, 1932
That early morning in the Depression year 1932, a heavy snowstorm, buffeted by biting wind gusts, continued to blanket our municipality. As a result, the white stuff was obliterating the facial features, pompadour, and dark suit of the stiff lying near the loading docks of an abandoned warehouse. The three of us gathered at the scene, city Detective Sergeant Robert Waddell, his fellow gumshoe Detective Fergus Donovan, and I–Private Investigator Gil Tanner–, were well bundled against the numbing cold.
* * *
Rob and I had been having breakfast at the Ajax Diner over on Broad Street when the rotund Donovan burst through the door to report a night watchman going off his shift had stumbled across the deceased fellow. Police Chief Noland had instructed he wanted Waddell’s hand in the case versus the thickset bull flying solo. Wise move. In the short time I’d been acquainted with the chunky flatfoot, he’d showed tendency to take the path of least resistance to find a resolution for and the perpetrator of a crime, be it a petty larceny or a murder.
The lummox had recently bungled a situation involving the arson of a small-scale general merchandise store, arresting the shop’s owner for the offense. It turned out the man was being extorted for “protection money” by a local gang of ne’er-do-wells. When he refused to pay, they firebombed his place of business. They meant their actions to punish him as well as to send a warning to the other shopkeepers on their list of potential “clients.” But, that’s a story for another time.
Upon receiving the chief’s message, we left our half-eaten “Sunrise Specials” and made our way in Donovan’s crate to an abandoned warehouse near the river. We, because I often tagged along with my good friend Waddell for lack of anything better to do. At that moment, there was not a brisk business of foot traffic to my PI agency. I did not thrill Gus with my presence. But Rob appreciated my occasional input to the cases.
* * *
As heavy snowflakes clung to his greatcoat, Donovan trudged slowly around the morbidly obese corpse before stopping and scratching his head. He looked at his sergeant, who knelt on the opposite side of the man’s body, searching for clues regarding what had caused his demise. I merely watched. “Do you think they killed him here or dumped the body here, Rob?” his fellow city copper asked, the breath of his words making brief gray clouds.
“Do you think they killed him here or dumped the body here, Rob?”
“Are you kidding me?” the senior detective scoffed. Waddell paused enough time to control his sarcasm. Sort of. “As enormous as he is? Unless he died somewhere else in a dump truck, he bit the linoleum here. Hell, with his weight, even if they cremate him, he’ll need pallbearers for his urn.” With this, my pal took a deep, calming breath and stood up. “No, my guess is his life ended here. I have two questions. What was he doing here? And how long had he been here before he was discovered? He’s as frozen as a Popsicle.” The man’s clothes were so covered over with ice, the investigators couldn’t get into his pockets to locate any identification.
Among ourselves, we’d speculated either he was soaking wet when he succumbed or the snow melted against his still-warm form and then refroze as he cooled with the dropping temperatures. Rob cut his eyes to me and, seeing my smart-assed smirk, returned to his fellow copper. “Anyway, at this point, we’re not even sure the fella was murdered. Considering his stature, it might’ve been a heart attack or some other physical disorder.”
While he was nowhere near the volume of the dead man, no one ever described the bulky Donovan as gaunt. The big bull shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. So, we’ll wait and see what the cutter has to say.”
As Gus made this insightful pronouncement, a car pulled up close to our assembly. Clarence Decker climbed out from behind the wheel. The heavyset copper rolled his eyes in disgust at his arrival. The young man was one of the local crime lab boys. Decker Avenue, a busy thoroughfare in our metropolis, had derived its name from his grandfather, a Civil War hero of some sort. This particular branch of the family tree was a bookworm who was always searching for new ways to solve crimes. As the forensic science of criminal investigation progressed, Clarence appeared at more scenes, trying to employ the knowledge he’d most recently gained.
His newest campaign involved the use of tire tread evidence to crack a case. This analytical technique, the creation of a researcher affiliated with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office, was something he had come across a couple of years earlier in Popular Science. Decker was attempting to establish it as a standard tool in the city’s department. Its successful utilization in a recent armed robbery trial had spurred his enthusiasm.
He moved to Rob’s side. His shoulders slumped in dejection. The white precipitation had long since obliterated any footprints and tire tracks that might have accompanied the unfortunate’s demise. Reading the man’s mind, my buddy sympathetically allowed, “It probably wouldn’t have mattered, Clarence. The area from here to the loading platform is paved. Not much chance for any meaningful tracks here, even if it is a murder.”
“Yeah. Possibly not.” With that, the lab technician returned to his heap and drove away.
“Hell, I’m not even sure what we’re doing here,” the junior cop complained to no one in particular.
As Decker departed, the boys from the coroner’s office pulled in.
“About time,” the ever-joyful Donovan grumbled. “A mug could freeze to death waiting for these guys.”
The closer of the two orderlies overheard the comment and responded, “Oh, yeah? Well, you try drivin’ across town in this crap!”
“I did, thanks!”
“Did you have to start from the basement parkin’ area of our office? A sheet of ice covered that incline to the street! You–”
“All right, ladies!” Waddell interrupted sternly, looking between the two men. “Let’s just do what’s required to get out of this weather without the bickering! Where’s the doc, McNulty?”
“The call came in as a natural death. No need for a doctor in that case. Besides, they’re swamped right now. You have anything to the contrary?”
“Well, there aren’t any visible wounds or injuries to the front of the guy. If you’re satisfied, we’ll roll him over and check his backside,” Rob offered.
McNulty’s partner joined him, and the pair tried to turn the cadaver to a prone position. As they struggled mightily, it became obvious their exertions would be futile. His bulk was too much for them. Only when Gus and I assisted with the effort, did it finally succeed. A dead lug always seemed to weigh twice what the same person weighed alive, but this was ridiculous!
I stepped back while the two detectives and the morgue’s guys examined the corpse. They located no wounds of any sort.
“Looks to be a mystery best left to our people. We’ll get this poor slob to a slab, thaw him out, and let one of the sawbones slice and dice. Give ‘em a couple of days before you call for results, though. We got a backlog of bodies right now. The winos and bindle punks are droppin’ like flies from stayin’ out at night in these freezin’ temperatures. Or is bindle stiffs the more appropriate term in that case?” he chuckled. His partner groaned at the pun.
With the help of all present, the dead man was put on a stretcher and loaded into their meat wagon. Then, the orderlies departed for the morgue. Under lowering skies that threatened a continuation of the snow squalls for the immediate future, we crawled back into Gus’s Ford Tudor sedan. Donovan’s drive to the station house gave new meaning to the term “near-death experience.”
* * *
In Waddell’s office, my two companions and I clung to cups of hot java with our frozen dogs propped up on his desk. Rob and I smoked our Camels and Chesterfields in silence. The third member of our trio, known for smoking a stogie down to where not enough was left for even a hobo to bother picking it up, puffed away on an obnoxious cigar. “Well, I don’t get this thing as a murder. No wounds, no injuries,” he opined around his smoke.
My chum sighed, “Let’s wait to see what the medical examiner says.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” the other countered, “but I’ll lay you 2-to-1 odds it’s not.”
“I’ll take that bet, Gus. Say, a hundred bucks?” I countered, offering a hand for a shake to seal the wager. I only did it to irritate the bulky copper. A flustered Donovan waved a dismissive mitt in my direction as his fellow flatfoot snickered.
“Honestly, I hope you’re right,” Rob sighed. “With what little we have to go on at this point, the case might shape up to a sure-enough whodunit.”
The sergeant’s telephone jingled. He stretched a lanky arm out to the side and clawed the receiver off the cradle. “Detective Waddell.” Dropping his feet to the floor suddenly, he reached for a notepad and pencil from his desk’s clutter. “All right. Give me the lowdown.” He held the receiver between his chin and shoulder while making notes. “Wait! Say that again… Uh-huh… Yeah, okay. Does he still have the guy with him?” A long pause followed. “Sure. Tell him to hold the man until I get there. I’ll meet him in front of the place in fifteen minutes… Mm-hmm… Okay. Thanks!”
Dropping his feet to the floor suddenly, he reached for a notepad and pencil from his desk’s clutter.
With that, he hung up and rose from his chair. Whatever was going on, it had our attention, and our feet hit the floor, too. “That was the front desk. A patrolman just telephoned in. A meter reader, who found the bloody body of a woman in the cellar of an apartment building over on Lexington, flagged him down. Pretty ugly situation, apparently.”
“How far off Market Street?” I asked, out of idle curiosity. The further along Lexington from Market toward the river, the more rundown the residential buildings became.
Rob glanced at his notes. “I didn’t get the building’s name. By the street number, though, it looks to be six blocks off Market.” That meant it wasn’t too bad by the standards of the thoroughfare that had fallen on hard times. “Gus, hang around here in case the coroner’s office calls regarding our massive John Doe stiff. The sooner we clear that off our plates, the happier I’ll be.” Donovan quickly accepted, glad not to be returning to the frigid temperatures. Donning his overcoat, my colleague huffed, “Never a dull minute.”
As we moved toward the exit, my pal advised he’d drop me back at my LaSalle parked near the Ajax Diner. I reminded him the eatery was in the opposite direction from our location to Lexington Avenue, and suggested I just tag along. He grinned knowingly and agreed.
* * *
As we pulled up to the Drexel Apartment Building, Patrolman Phil Bohanan came down the walk to the street. “Sorry to drag you out in this weather.” He nodded to me, turned, and led us to the front door, talking as we walked. “I’ve called for a meat wagon. The man who came across the body is Joe Cicchinelli. I see him on my beat from time to time. Nice guy. He’s in the lobby, and he’s pretty shaken up.”
“Have you been able to identify the woman?”
“Not yet. I hope the building superintendent can help with that if she lives here, but he’s at the hospital.” In answer to Rob’s puzzled expression, the cop divulged, “His wife’s having a kid.” He followed with, “Somebody else living here might recognize her, but I’ve been keeping the rubberneckers at bay for the time being. Haven’t had the time or a chance for a canvas.” Waddell nodded his approval of the actions of the officer, who continued, “Anyway, the dead woman appears to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Kinda hard to tell. Brunette. And a real looker.”
Inside, Rob briefly spoke to Cicchinelli and thanked him for his help. Then, Bohanan led us through a cluster of gawkers crowding the basement passageway to the cadaver. There, the meter man walked the lawmen through how he came across the stiff. He said that, when he initially saw the red-stained cloth partially buried in the coal bin, he figured they were discarded rags from a painting job. But then he saw what he took for a foot sticking out from under it. On closer examination, he realized it was a body. He went to the first apartment where he could find anyone at home and called the police.
As the witness finished his explanation, McNulty, his sidekick, and Dr. Herman Clyatt, also from the coroner’s office, appeared. The former moaned to no one in particular, “No rest for the wicked, eh?”
“Apparently not,” Phil felt compelled to reply.
Another fellow, a gangly, tired-looking, red-haired guy with a thin nose and weak, ineffectual chin, was right behind the ME’s men. He mumbled a curse under his breath when he saw the reason for the gathering. Waddell held up a hand to stop him from coming further into the crime scene and inquired who he was. “Stanley Coulson,” the newcomer and the meter reader responded in unison.
The detective introduced himself and brought the maintenance man up to speed on the events thus far. He asked him for help to determine if the woman lived at the Drexel or was otherwise familiar to him. The ginger-haired fellow agreed to assist in any way possible.
Meanwhile, the cutter stood by in the cellar chill as one of his men photographed the scene. When they’d taken the initial pictures, the coal, which more or less hid the body, was removed. They found that part of the fabric Joe had thought to be clothing was bed linen, enveloping the body. The coroner’s boys then made additional snaps. Afterwards, the croaker moved in for his preliminary examination.
As the doctor worked, Coulson peeked over his shoulder at the deceased woman. The ashen-faced man stepped back to Waddell. “That’s Miss Pogarovsky, Flora Pogarovsky from apartment four twenty-seven.”
“You’re sure? There’s a lot of blood.” The witness swallowed hard as his head bobbed an affirmative response. “What do you know about her?”
“Not much.” The super paused. Rob gave him a meaningful glare. Stanley gulped and offered, “She’s been here around three years. Showed up right after The Crash, when we were losing more than a few residents, looking for a furnished place. She was a quiet tenant. Single woman… uh… who lived alone. Always paid her rent on time.”
“Where did she work?”
“I don’t know,” the fellow replied hesitantly.
“Any relatives? Boyfriends?”
“None that I’m aware of.” He seemed unsure of his answers.
“Okay. Thanks. We may be back in touch if any other questions come up. For the time being, I’ll need to get into her apartment.”
“Well, I’ve told you all I know,” the super responded with a nervous titter. The city detective gazed hard at him, but said nothing. “I’ll go get a passkey,” he volunteered before turning to depart.
When the maintenance man had disappeared, the investigator huddled together with his subordinate. “C’mere, Gil.” I stepped to the two men. Rob leaned toward us and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “Something doesn’t jive here. Did you notice that lug’s eyes when I was asking questions concerning the dead woman?” Bohanan and I agreed he couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact with Rob.
Rob leaned toward us and spoke in a conspiratorial tone.
“Perhaps it was the shock of the circumstances, but I don’t think so. I believe he’s hiding something. Phil, talk to Pogarovsky’s neighbors to see if you can learn anything more of her,” the plainclothes bull instructed. “Stanley said he didn’t know where she worked. That strikes me as a little odd. In my experience, mugs in his line learn quite a bit about their tenants over time, including where they’re employed.” Again, the uniformed officer and I concurred. “And, if the broad didn’t have a job,” Waddell questioned, “how the hell did she afford an apartment even in a joint like this?”
As Bohanan left to question the deceased woman’s fellow building occupants, Dr. Clyatt approached. “Rob. my preliminary examination of the unfortunate lady tells me she’s been dead at least seventy-five hours. She’s past rigor mortis. Rigor,” he reminded us, “begins to decrease around thirty-six hours and ends approximately seventy-two hours after death. Lower temperatures, such as we have down here, cause rigor to set in faster and last longer. So, something around that timeframe, but not much over owing to the state of the remains. I’ll be able to tell more when I’ve finished a postmortem. And I don’t mean to add to your workload, my friend, but she was killed somewhere else and dumped here. Not enough blood here to be the crime scene.”
Rob’s eyebrows arched as he exhaled wearily. “Can you give me the cause of death at this point?”
“It appears someone stabbed the lady in the abdomen. My guess at this stage is the wound pierced the abdominal aorta. She died from a slight case of exsanguination,” the doctor finished drolly.
“Thanks, Doc,” the city copper snickered. “I understand you have a line of unfortunate stiffs waiting for your services, but can you make this one a priority? And let me know what you find out.”
“Sure thing. I’ll deal with it as soon as I return.” As the cutter stepped away, he paused and turned back. “By the way, your frozen corpse was still defrosting when I left the morgue. No one’s picked up the case yet. But when he’s ready for the slab, we’ll call you.
We took off as the coroner’s boys were hauling the late Miss Pogarovsky away.
* * *
In the lobby, Waddell sent Mr. Cicchinelli on his way when he’d confirmed they had gotten his contact information. Stanley turned up with his passkeys, took us on the elevator to the fourth floor, then to the deceased woman’s apartment. When we arrived, Bohanan was in a doorway across the hall speaking with an older lady wearing a faded bathrobe. The city gumshoe stepped to the entrance of apartment four twenty-seven and tried the knob. It was locked. Rob moved aside and made a vague hand motion, giving the super the go-ahead to use his key.
When Coulson unlocked the door and started to walk inside, the detective put a gentle but firm hand on his chest. “No one goes into this flat without my express permission. That includes you. Get me?”
“Understood,” he murmured as he turned and walked away.
My buddy shot me an uncertain look. “Is he a suspect?” I asked under my breath. As soon as I’d posed the question, I smiled, knowing what was coming.
“You know my rule, Gil. Everybody’s a suspect at this stage of the investigation. The guy’s just a little too jittery for my comfort.”
Pogarovsky’s rooms, which smelled of lilacs and face powder, had a lived-in look. Not ransacked, but not nearly ready for a barracks inspection either. Someone had turned off the steam to the radiator, leaving the place very chilly.
Beside a neatly made bed perched a stuffed armchair, covered with miscellaneous women’s clothing. The two bedside tables each held a lamp. A telephone rested on one nightstand. On the other sat a liquor bottle, several glasses, and an overflowing ashtray. A dressing table stood against one wall. Its surface was populated by cold cream jars, assorted other beauty aids, an etui, and toiletry items. The unit had a kneehole and drawers like an office desk. It appeared to be maple with a single horizontal strip of a darker wood inlaid across its front. The piece had a large round mirror mounted on the back of it. A cushioned chair, also piled with women’s apparel, sat tucked slightly into the kneehole. A matching bureau was situated nearby. Several drawers of the dressing table and the chest were open, with clothing articles draped over their fronts and sides.
There was no sign of blood anywhere in plain sight. During our cursory search, we used handkerchiefs to lift or move items to avoid leaving our fingerprints. We identified nothing of any evidentiary value in the closet or the bathroom. No murder weapon was located.
After a time, Bohanan joined us in frisking the apartment. Waddell had him go through the sundry items on top of the chest of drawers. He reported finding a couple of business cards, handwritten notes of men’s names along with hotels and bars, a matchbook from a local nightspot, and a few dollars. The detective told Phil to make notations of what he located.
When Rob and I finished our search, he stood at the foot of the bed. “C’mere,” he said to the flatfoot, who joined him. “Does the condition of this bed fit with the wreck the rest of the place is in?”
“No. Now that you mention it, it doesn’t.”
“Let’s strip the thing.” Pulling back the bedspread, they saw there were no sheets and no blanket on the bed. “Kinda cold not to have a blanket. I’ll lay odds the linens that belong here are what Cicchinelli found the stiff wrapped in. C’mon, let’s play a hunch of mine. Help me flip the mattress.”
When the pair turned the bedding over, they discovered a great deal of blood had soaked into it. A slight coppery smell permeated the air. “I suspect you have your crime scene, sergeant.”
“Yeah, I believe you’re right.”
“Funny thing, detective,” Bohanan chuckled.
“What’s funny?”
“Well, the neighbors say Flora was very….”
“What?” Waddell demanded, eager for answers.
“Very ‘social’ by all accounts.” Phil checked his notepad. “The apartments on either side are vacant. But Mrs. Postigilione, across the hall, told me that the victim had a lot of male company at all hours. She was very disapproving of the lady’s lifestyle. Mr. O’Rourke, two doors down, stated she had nice legs and was generous with them. I think he wanted to tell me more, but Mrs. O’Rourke overheard his comment, dragged him back inside the apartment, and slammed the door. She was giving him what for as I walked away.”
But Mrs. Postigilione, across the hall, told me that the victim had a lot of male company at all hours.
The plainclothes gumshoe smiled and gave a telling nod. “Yeah, I know the type of woman. Both types.”
The uniformed patrolman cleared his throat. “Huh. That might explain something I saw in the stuff you had me look through, though.”
“Go on.”
“There was a doctor’s office card. A Dr. Priestley. Handwritten on the thing was the word ‘neosalvarsan.’ Isn’t that a medicine used to treat–?”
“Yes, it is,” Waddell sighed. “Our girl must have suffered from the ‘French disease.’”
“As they say,” I chimed in, “‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.’”
“Well, the tomato’s time with mercury is done. On the bright side, not only do we have our crime scene, we might also have our motive,” Rob said with a measure of relief. Nodding to the telephone, the senior cop directed, “Officer, use your handkerchief when handling the blower and call the crime lab boys over here to give this flat a good going over on my authorization. Get this place locked up until the lab fellas show up. Make sure they print everything in here.
“And have them get whatever they can for a blood sample from that mattress to compare with Pogarovsky’s. Stay here with them until they’re finished. Then lock up again. And, on your way out, remind the super no one is to come in here. Nobody. After that, see me in my office. I want you working this case with me. I’ll clear your absence from foot patrol for the rest of your watch with your sergeant. Meanwhile, I’ll contact the coroner’s office and let them know about Flora’s ‘ailment.’ They may want to take extra precautions when they handle her.”
Bohanan waggled his head in understanding, and we departed.
* * *
Roughly three hours later, Waddell and I were in his office. He lit a fresh cigarette and emptied his lungs of smoke. “When the lab technicians finish in the apartment, I’m gonna haul Coulson down here for a little tȇte-à-tȇte.”
“Why wait?”
“I want to learn if they turn up something that gives me a bulge on the man. That’ll also give the medical examiner more time to do an autopsy on Pogarovsky. Likewise, that should–” Rob broke off his thought as the uniformed officer came through the door. “Glad to see you, son. Did they find anything interesting in the flat?”
Referring to his notepad, he advised, “Well, still no murder weapon. But they ran across fingerprints from what they reckon are four different people. One set was smaller, likely from a woman, probably our victim. Then the guys discovered a larger impression in blood, low on the side of the bathroom sink. And blood was located on the underside of the faucet. We figure somebody tried to clean up in a panic and didn’t do a very good job of it. Plus, they pulled two other distinct sets of prints, not the same folks as the first two.”
“That’s great!” Rob exclaimed. After a pause, he looked at the officer and went on, “I meant to ask if you noticed an apartment key on the chest of drawers.”
“No, sir. And the lab guys didn’t turn one up, either.”
Waddell glanced at me. I shook my head. “Funny that. I never saw one anywhere either. And yet the unit’s door was locked.”
“Yeah, but Coulson wouldn’t need to take her key,” I put in. “He had a passkey.”
“Gil, we both know that a man in a panic doesn’t necessarily act logically,” he contended, as he reached for the horn and dialed a number. “But, if he was thinking clearly, it could be a red herring, a way of pointing to another culprit.” I could only nod in agreement. After a few rings, someone apparently picked up on the other end of the wire. “Hello. This is Detective Waddell. Listen, one of the doctors, I think Clyatt, has a woman there, a Flora Pogarovsky, for an autopsy. I’m pretty sure he’d do it anyway, but I want to make certain he prints her and gets a set of the prints over to our lab as soon as possible. Uh-huh… Yeah, sure. Thanks.” He replaced the receiver and rose from his chair.
The young man spoke up before I voiced what was on my mind. “Sir, I guess you think the super might have one of several motives for killing the skirt.” Rob smiled and listened patiently. “Could be he was playing ‘slap and tickle’ with her on the side,” the beat cop continued, “and somehow learned of her disease. Its implications for him and his spouse infuriated him. Or, perhaps, if they were doing the ‘horizontal rumble,’ Flora tried to blackmail him with a threat to go to his wife. Both could lead to murder.”
“It might be either of those or something we haven’t even considered. Now let’s give the building superintendent an invitation to spend a little time in an interrogation room.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, a despondent Stanley Coulson sat across a table from Waddell. I stood in a corner off to one side.
The Drexel Apartment man had been picked up, brought downtown, and fingerprinted upon his arrival at the station house. The lanky plainclothesman had Phil walk the prints downstairs to the lab for a preliminary comparison with those recovered from Pogarovsky’s apartment before joining him in questioning the lug. Meanwhile, the detective was trying to pin his detainee down on his exact relationship with the dead woman.
“So, come clean about you and Flora!” Rob demanded, slamming a fist to the table. The color drained from maintenance man’s face.
A knock on the door broke the tension momentarily. “Yeah?” my pal called out. When the door opened a crack, Patrolman Bohanan edged his head inside. “C’mon in. I was just getting warmed up with Mr. Coulson here. Have a seat.”
The lawman took the chair next to the senior man and leaned in to whisper, “The laboratory said it would take a little time. Someone will bring you the results.”
“Great.” Returning his attention to the ginger-haired man, he asked, “Now, where were we? Oh, that’s right,” he grinned. “You were getting ready to explain to me what your connection with Pogarovsky was.”
“I tell ya, there was none. Why won’t you believe me?”
“Why? Because I have this little fella sitting on my shoulder when I conduct an investigation, see? He lets me know what’s a legit lead, who’s a suspect, where to turn next. You get the picture?” The superintendent involuntarily glanced at his interrogator’s shoulders, but his face remained as blank as a pie pan. “And right now, the guy’s screaming your name at the top of his lungs.”
The superintendent involuntarily glanced at his interrogator’s shoulders, but his face remained as blank as a pie pan.
Stanley came to life suddenly. “You’re crazy! She was only a tenant! Nothing more!”
“How many times had you been in her apartment?”
“Never!” he shouted. The maintenance man paused as if rethinking what he’d just said, then proceeded calmly. “Never. I had no reason to go in. Flora always showed up at the office on the ground floor to pay her rent.”
“No upkeep issues in her place that required your presence?”
“Not since she moved in. No.”
“I’ll know soon enough if you’re lying to me. And it’s going to be a lot harder on you if you have been. You’d better–” Another tap at the door cut Waddell’s thought short. I saw immediate aggravation on his face before he realized who it likely was. “Yeah?” he asked, as he stood, pushing the chair back with his legs.
The door opened slightly, and a voice whispered, “A word with you, sir?”
Rob disappeared into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him. He returned shortly, holding two pieces of paper, and resumed his seat. I saw one sheet was a fingerprint form. “You’ve been lying to us, Coulson!” The detective threw up a hand to stop the man’s protest. “Don’t bother! Our lab boys pulled your prints from all over Flora’s place. I have their report right here.”
Stanley, not a tough customer by any estimation, deflated in defeat. That weak chin trembled and dropped to his chest. His eyes welled. “Okay, okay. I spent time with her every so often. She–”
“By ‘spent time,’ I assume you mean the two of you had sex,” said, his voice dripping with disgust.
The redhead’s hands covered his face. “Yes,” he bawled. After calming breaths, he went on. “I learned soon after she moved in, she was a sleepy-time girl. If business was slow and she couldn’t make her rent, we’d take it out in trade.” Suddenly he yelled, “But I didn’t kill her! I swear!” He sat bug-eyed, shaking beneath his skin as his Adam’s apple bobbled above his collar.
“On that, I believe you.”
The superintendent shot a surprised expression at the city dick. “You do?” his questioner’s head waggled. “You’re not gonna say anything to my wife, are you?” he begged pitifully.
For a long minute, the detective said nothing. He got a piece of paper from Bohanan’s notepad and wrote something on it. The entire time, Coulson’s eyes were frozen on his tormentor. Rob slid the note he’d written across to the super, advising, “No. You are. You’re going to tell her you both need to see a doctor about possible treatment with this drug.”
The hooker’s lover read the writing without comprehension. “I don’t get it.”
“You may already have it.”
“Huh?” Stanley was befuddled.
Waddell shook his head vigorously and made a vague wave with his hand. “Anyway, you’re free to go. Get this piece of crap out of here, officer, and send him home,” the sergeant seethed. The red-haired fella’s face held an expression of uncertainty as he rose from his chair.
“Wait in the hall for a second,” the uniformed copper directed the shaken man, “and I’ll walk you out.” He closed the door when the super had exited the room. The three of us stood together. Bohanan spoke first, “Let me guess. The prints of Flora the morgue sent over matched the small set located in her place. Coulson’s were a set of the prints, but not the one in the blood. So, someone else killed the dame and tried to tidy up.”
“You’ll make a swell detective, Phil,” Rob said sincerely. He glanced in the direction where the former suspect was standing in the hall. “I could bust him for a minor offense–lying to police, obstruction of an investigation, something. But I have a feeling he’s got a lot worse punishment coming his way than might result from any misdemeanor charge I can bring,” he snorted.
While the patrolman escorted Stanley to the lobby, my buddy and I returned to his office. He called the Vice Squad to learn if they had any information on a hooker named Flora Pogarovsky.
After hanging up, he told me what he’d learned. The lug, from what some referred to as “the morality police,” advised him the chippy worked her normal pickup routine out of The Starlight Lounge. She was in a stable of joy girls working for a pimp who went by the moniker Lloyd Brown, nicknamed Buster after the comic strip character. He operated his crew of whores from The Bandbox. The vice dick said from time to time his men arrested the women he controlled, but they’d get bailed out and be back plying their trade in a matter of hours. They never got any of the prostitutes to turn on their “handler.” And collaring the panderer had never gotten them anywhere. When asked, he assured Waddell that Brown’s fingerprints were on file. He finished the conversation by giving the detective a description of his mark.
The Bandbox was familiar to anyone who kept up with the criminal element in our city. It was a lowbrow bar–dancehall–clip joint located among the lesser lights of our city’s hotel population.
“So now you have another suspect with at least one of the same motives as you’d attributed to Coulson,” I said when the detective hung up.
Waddell reached for his hat on the desk where he’d dropped it when we came in, as he launched himself from his chair. “Yeah, a hooker is careless enough to come down with a venereal disease, which takes her out of circulation for a time, if not permanently. She becomes useless to her pimp, possibly even a liability. He goes into a rage and kills her.” Shrugging into his coat, he asked, “Well, are you coming with me to The Bandbox?”
“‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ I thought you’d never ask,” I laughed.
* * *
A short time later, we pushed our way into the dimly lit dump. A Seeburg Audiophone, blaring a tinny Ben Bernie tune, occupied the wall to our left just inside the front door. There were a fair number of customers of both sexes littering the joint’s bar stools and the tables. You immediately knew the criminal element in the crowd. Their conversations died off when they saw my companion. Others quieted due to what an alienist might call herd instinct. Several people straightened up in their seats. A few men sat down, some got to their feet, but all moved slowly, cautiously. Everyone kept their eyes on Waddell, who was well known as a no-nonsense lawman.
A few men sat down, some got to their feet, but all moved slowly, cautiously.
I followed Rob to the counter where he turned and leaned back on his elbows, taking the place in. He focused on several men standing against the saloon’s adjacent wall. The object of my pal’s attention gradually became obvious. A muscular, lantern-jawed mug slowly eased his way along the wall toward a door at the end of the bar. Waddell stiffened. “Don’t move, Buster! There won’t be any back-window moves here tonight!”
The big lug stopped momentarily before darting for the rear exit. The plainclothes cop suddenly charged across the intervening space between them faster than I would have expected. It took the man, who froze, by surprise. The lawman reached the punk before he could react. Rob’s inertia slammed the fella against the wall. His target quickly recovered and staggered my friend with a solid shot to his head. The copper fell backwards and landed hard against the edge of the bar, letting out a loud, painful groan. Blood dripped down his cheek.
Then, he made a rapid, practiced movement ending with his service revolver in his working hand. He laid the butt against his opponent’s skull with enough force to buckle the big man’s knees. The blond’s back arched, then went loose. His lid flew to the floor behind him. The tall roughneck’s eyes showed white as he dropped, and his hat disappeared beneath him. A gasp rose from a few of the hangout’s occupants. Others snorted disdainfully.
A sudden scraping of chairs caught my attention. Despite the gumshoe’s reputation, a few bruisers in the crowd had apparently decided to get involved. Instinctively, I unholstered my gat. “You heels stay put! This is a murder investigation! Police business! Anybody who tries to interfere will be sorrier than that goon!” I yelled, indicating the fallen louse with the barrel of my rod. While watching the motley mob, I eased to Rob, who was massaging his back with a grimace covering his puss. “You all right?”
“It’s nothing that Sloan’s Liniment can’t take care of,” he groaned. Jerking his head toward the collapsed man, he grunted, “Meet ‘Buster’ Brown.”
I glanced down at the guy. Having always pictured pimps as scrawny, homely types who had an inexplicable hold over the women they dominated into the sex trade, I realized this bully didn’t fit the bill. “Now what?”
“Now I haul his sorry ass to jail for assaulting a policeman and resisting. I’m gonna get him printed, lock him up, and deal with him in the morning. He’ll keep ‘til then. And at least he can’t pull the big flit tonight,” he finished, still rubbing his back. “It’s been a long day.”
“Mind if I join you tomorrow?”
Waddell chuckled gingerly and huffed, “Sure. Why not? Penny–pound, right? Besides, I owe you for covering my ass. Events here could have gotten pretty nasty.” On the drive to the city lockup, he told me what time to come by his office.
* * *
As I made the door to my chum’s office the next morning, Gus Donovan was at his supervisor’s desk. He was turning in the last of his paperwork on a decomposing floater case he’d handled back when the weather was still warm enough to assist the putrefying process.
The corpse had been a John Doe for around a week before the junior detective could identify him. The man, a bachelor named Ted Larkin, had been a local bank executive who’d been on the chisel with the institution’s money until The Crash. In the months following that October fiasco, everyone was suddenly taking a much closer look at a bank’s books. They closed his branch and began auditing the accounts. When he reached the point where he could no longer hide his sins, the embezzler took a header off the south bridge over the Middle Fork River that flowed along the west side of our city. So, the case, initially thought to have been a murder, turned out otherwise.
“. . . and he pulled the Dutch act to avoid the scandal. Had no identification on him when they found the guy,” Donovan crowed with his chin up and his chest–what you could make of it above his alderman–out proudly. “But it didn’t take me long to put the finger on him.” The big flatfoot wasn’t aware it was common knowledge the stiff had been quickly connected to a billfold happened upon by a couple of kids playing down river a short time after the body was discovered.
“Good job!” his superior declared, glancing my way and smiling. I shook my head. The detective sergeant knew my opinion of his fellow officer. But I gave my pal credit for squeezing the last drop of “juice” out of his lemon-shaped subordinate.
The blower ringing interrupted the congratulatory testimonial. Rob reached across and lifted the receiver. “Waddell.” Then a pause. “Yeah? Hold on.” He pulled himself to the desk surface and fished a piece of paper and pencil from the disorder there. “Go ahead. Uh-huh… Yeah, sure. Lewis Brereton, you say? Spell the last name… B-r-e-r-e-t-o-n. Got it. That’s great, Doc! I’ll be there in less than half an hour… Mm-hmm… Okay. Thanks!” He cradled the telephone and stood up quickly. This was becoming a habit.
“That was Dr. Moody from the coroner’s office. Our Popsicle cadaver thawed out enough for the morgue folks to go through his pockets. They located his wallet with a driver’s license and his business card. Name’s… uh… was Lewis Brereton. He was a traveling medical supplies salesman out of New Jersey.” Walking to his coat rack to retrieve his fedora and overcoat, he continued. “The doc says he has more dope on how our boy died. Wants to show me what he found. And it is a murder!”
“Hey, my friend,” I proclaimed, slapping the portly gumshoe on the shoulder as we left the office, “that means you owe me a hundred simoleons!”
“What?” he scoffed. “We didn’t shake on it! Get the hell away from me, shamus!” Gus’s sense of humor was lacking when it came to my jibes.
* * *
The three of us were in Warren Moody’s office as he explained, “… and when his clothing finally reached the point where we could go through the pockets, these are what we found.” As he spoke, the good doctor waved a hand over a few items on a side table. On it sat a billfold, some change, various business cards, a slip of paper with a telephone number, and a matchbook.
He turned to the slab where the obese corpse lay. We followed his lead and solemnly gathered around. “When he arrived here at the morgue, I determined the lividity on his backside, caused by postmortem clotting, was heavy and fixed. Because of the freezing weather, I’d say he’d been where he was discovered at least thirty-six hours. Maybe a little more.” The croaker pulled back the part of a sheet covering the man’s upper torso. Using a boney finger, Moody pointed, “You probably couldn’t make it out under the layer of ice and snow, but now you can see the neck is blotched with purple bruising. Those round contusions would match the tips of the fingers and the pads of the thumb of his assailant.”
The croaker pulled back the part of a sheet covering the man’s upper torso.
“So he died of strangulation,” Donovan put in.
“No,” the cutter corrected. “My examination showed something else. His assailant tried to strangle him, was choking him, when the unfortunate fellow suffered a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. Though they didn’t choke him to death, they murdered him nonetheless. There were no other injuries or wounds of any sort, so the episode came upon him rather rapidly. And I’d say you’re looking for a strong killer with hands large enough to wrap around Mr. Brereton’s sizeable neck.”
Donovan collected the items found on Lewis’s body while Waddell thanked Moody. We bumped into Doc Clyatt in the hallway. He briefly spoke to Rob. The autopsy conclusively established how Flora had died: a severed abdominal aorta, from which she’d bled out. He had sent a blood sample from her corpse to the city police lab. His discussions with them confirmed it was her blood on the mattress and in the print on the sink. Following their conversation, the three of us made our way back to headquarters so the detective could take up where he’d left off with Lloyd Brown.
* * *
In his office, Rob telephoned to have the panderer brought to an interrogation room from the jail. Gus dropped Brereton’s effects onto the sergeant’s desk and moved on to make a mess of another criminal matter, no doubt. So it was just Waddell and me left to entertain Mr. Brown. Okay, the city copper dealt with him. I merely observed.
“Well, I guess you know why you’re here,” began when the prisoner was seated at the interview room table.
The arrestee swallowed hard. “No, I don’t,” he croaked with a shrug.
“I want to talk to you about a murder. And don’t pretend you’re in the dark about it. I have evidence to the contrary.”
With bulging eyes and an uncertain expression, the beefy pimp muttered, “Prove it,” and clammed up. No amount of cajoling or threatening could bring him to say anything. It was obvious my colleague didn’t want to tip his mitt on exactly what his proof was too quickly. For once, I regretted not having Donovan present to apply the city telephone directory to the ruffian’s head to make him spill his guts. Gus had a reputation, too. After nearly an hour of getting nowhere with Brown, the exasperated interrogator sent him back to the cooler.
We returned to Rob’s office. While I sat nearby and enjoyed a coffin nail, he started going through the items retrieved from Brereton’s body. “Now, this is a helluva coincidence!”
“What?”
“Among this stuff is a matchbook from The Starlight Lounge. And we agree that neither of us likes coincidences, right? I nodded. “How do–?” Waddell stopped short when a familiar face appeared at his door, holding several pieces of paper. “C’mon in, Phil. You finished your shift already?
“No sir. Today’s my day off.”
The detective shot Bohanan a quiet expression of appreciation for his dedication. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“I was going to drop off a copy of my report on the Pogarovsky homicide. You said you wanted it for your file.” His eyes crawled sideways to me. “Sorry to interrupt.” I waved off his apology.
“No problem,” Rob asserted. “We just got back from the coroner’s office where I was dealing with a different murder case. I was going through the stuff they found in the dead man’s pockets. You’ll find this interesting, officer. It seems this guy, Brereton, was a patron of the joint Flora worked out of. I was saying–”
“Who?” uniformed officer asked excitedly and louder than he apparently intended. “Sorry.” The patrolman’s superior nodded, encouraging the young man to continue. “Well,” he explained, “you see, there’s that placard in the assembly room where we muster every day before we head out to our beats. It reads ‘Remember the Names.’ I take that seriously.” Glancing at the account in his hand, he went on, “One of the cards Pogarovsky had on top of her bureau was for a Lewis Brereton. The card stated he was a traveling salesman for a medical supply company.”
I saw the light of recognition in the detective’s eyes. A stunned Rob quickly moved to his desk and retrieved his case notes. He then compared his scrawl to the slip of paper located in one of Brereton’s pockets. Waddell’s face initially held a shocked expression. Then a huge grin played across his kisser. “MArket 3106! Our heart attack victim had the joy girl’s telephone number in his pocket!” he proclaimed triumphantly. “And,” he added, “a book of matches from the joint she worked out of! That’s too damned much to be mere coincidence, don’t you agree, Gil?”
Waddell’s face initially held a shocked expression. Then a huge grin played across his kisser.
“Oh, hell yes!”
The plainclothesman glanced between me and his fellow copper as he hiked a hip up onto the edge of his desk. “Let me paint a picture for the two of you. See if you think it holds water.” Of course, we agreed to hear him out. “Flora, who’s still working despite her disease, meets our drummer in The Starlight Lounge. For some reason, they don’t ‘strike a bargain’ right away. Maybe she was hoping for a more appealing john to come along to earn her evening’s wages. The randy guy gets her telephone number after she stalls his advances. To play for time, she takes his business card. In the meantime, she hustles him for drinks. The joint’s known for the B-girls who work there. In these tough times, perhaps Pogarovsky was supplementing her income.
“Anyway, the night drags on and nothing better walks through the door. So the girl resigns herself to her fate and leads Lewis back to her place. There, they ‘do the dirty.’ Afterwards, while his ‘date’ is still lying on her bed, her john gets up and starts getting dressed. As he’s standing by the chest of drawers, possibly buttoning his shirt, he notices Dr. Priestley’s card and the name of the drug written on it. Working in a racket affiliated with the medical field, he recognizes the medication and understands its significance, just as I assumed was the case with Coulson when he learned of his lover’s disease.
He becomes enraged and attacks the woman with a knife of some sort from somewhere. Likely, she kept a blade on her bedside table for protection or he carried a large pocketknife. He stabs her, keeps her from crying out, and she bleeds to death on the bed. By this time, the fool’s panicking. He tries to clean himself up in the bathroom and inadvertently leaves a print on the sink.” After a short pondering pause, Rob cried out, “Fingerprint! Holy crap!”
Waddell hurriedly called Moody to have Brereton’s prints taken and sent to the crime lab for comparison. As an afterthought, he also requested that they take a photograph of the dead man’s face and get it developed as soon as possible. With that bit of business behind him, he returned to his hypothetical scenario. “Now, for some reason, Lewis feels compelled to hide the body instead of just leaving her and making a clean sneak. Could be he’s afraid someone in the building saw him go up with Flora and can put them together,” he shrugged.
“Anyway, he wraps Pogarovsky in the bed linens and flips the mattress. Then, he carries her to the cellar. It being the middle of the night by this time, no one’s around to see him. Despite his awkward obesity, the salesman is able to accomplish it without having a heart attack. Once there, he puts her in the coal bin before his getaway. Like as not, he hoped the next delivery of the fuel would finish covering his crime. A day or two later Cicchinelli enters the picture, finds her, and we take it from there.” Waddell took a deep breath and considered his rendition. “I dunno. In what I’ve proposed, some of Brereton’s actions make little sense. But, the same as we talked about yesterday, a man in a panic doesn’t necessarily act logically. Whaddya think, Gil? Phil?”
We agreed the Rob’s take on the case was plausible. Certain of my friend’s intent, I didn’t ask the question Bohanan felt compelled to broach. “Is the photo to see if anyone at The Starlight Lounge recognizes Brereton?”
Waddell smiled and waggled his head enthusiastically. “Yep. A mug with the bulk of Lewis won’t be easily forgotten. And putting him with our dead brunette at the nightclub several nights ago would put a nice bow on the case.” He glanced at his strap watch. “I’m at a loss for anything to do before the lab boys take our victim’s prints and have his photograph is ready. What say we get lunch? My treat.”
* * *
By the time we returned from Cappacino’s Restaurant, a message, along with a photo of the deceased fat man, sat on Rob’s desk. The note said he was to contact LennyBrinkman, the fingerprint expert in our city’s police laboratory. He dialed the number and asked for technician. “Give me some good news, Lenny!” After a pause, my pal’s puss broke into an enormous grin. He happily informed the analyst he was going to buy his son whatever he wanted for his upcoming bar mitzvah. The sergeant then requested the specialist compare the prints on file for a Lloyd “Buster” Brown with the fourth set discovered in his stabbing victim’s apartment.
“It was Brereton’s print in the dead woman’s blood on her sink!” the detective beamed as he returned the receiver to its support. “And the only way that could happen was if he was her killer.” Waddell picked the massively overweight man’s snapshot up from his desk. “I’m headed to The Starlight Lounge, hopefully, to put the last nail in the lid on Flora Pogarovsky’s murder case. Either of you two takers?”
Bohanan begged off, saying he needed to get home to a wife who was feeling neglected. Naturally, I was on board with the visit to the nightclub. Something screwy was spinning in the back of my mind at that moment, but I said nothing. Later, perhaps.
* * *
Nearly an hour later, we were climbing back into the department’s Ford Waddell drove. The bartender and one tosspot regular in the joint had both identified Brereton as the man they’d seen drinking with Pogarovsky several nights earlier. Though unclear on exactly which day it had been, both were certain they’d not seen Flora, who was a steady fixture there, or Lewis since the night in question. And, despite seeing only a picture of the man’s face, both people were able to describe his morbid obesity in detail. Their statements left no doubt in our minds about what had transpired on that fateful evening.
“One murder down, one to go,” Rob sighed before quietly sitting behind the wheel for a few seconds. He pulled the snap of the dead man from his coat pocket again and studied it for a second.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked, though reasonably certain I could guess. It involved that notion I’d been wrestling with earlier.
My companion turned on the seat and our eyes locked. I saw we were both thinking the same thing.
* * *
For a second time, Lloyd Brown sat across a table from Detective Waddell in an interrogation room. We had reasoned it would take a big, powerful man–a hard number with large mitts like his–to manhandle and kill a guy the size of Brereton. And he’d need a solid motive such as revenge for the murder of an attractive, good earner such as the dark-haired knockout likely was. By then, Lenny had matched Brown’s prints with the fourth set from the working girl’s flat.
This time I sat at the table next to my friend. A beefy harnessed bull stood against the wall behind the pimp, who was as stoic as ever.
“I owe you an apology.” Waddell’s comment brought a rakish smile to Lloyd’s mouth, but he remained silent. “I had you pegged for Flora Pogarovsky’s murder. That’s why I hauled you in here to begin with. But I was wrong. Now I’ve got you dead to rights for killing one Lewis Brereton. You know, the creep who murdered her.”
“Yeah? Prove it, copper!”
“Oh, I have the proof all right. Hmm … Where should I start?” The plainclothes cop opened a file he had on the table and held it where only he could see its contents. On the outside, facing the pimp, was written “Lewis Brereton Murder. Lloyd ‘Buster’ Brown–Suspect.” “First, there was a witness to you dumping Brereton’s body at the warehouse,” the flatfoot bluffed. “Got your car’s description and license plate number.” Rob raised a restraining hand to cut off the prisoner’s protestations. “Yeah, even in the dark. That’s why they’re called night watchmen.” The inmate met this statement with a dull expression of confusion. Waddell flipped a sheet of paper in the folder. “Then there’s the fact that you went to The Starlight Lounge asking around for your girl when you couldn’t contact her.”
“First, there was a witness to you dumping Brereton’s body at the warehouse,” the flatfoot bluffed.
He turned another page. “Then we’ve got you at her apartment building looking for her. I’ll ignore your fingerprints in her rooms. After all, she was one of your best girls, a darb, a good earner, no doubt. I expect that’s when you realized she was dead. ‘Cause she’d never leave you! Of that, you were certain. Anyway, I figure that’s when you somehow connected Lewis with her death. Maybe from his business card left behind in her place. Possibly by asking people at The Starlight. You think folks aren’t gonna remember a big blond jasper like you coming around, asking questions? And then you tracked him down some way. A guy his size couldn’t exactly hide very easily, even in a crowded city as large as this.
“Then we have your fingerprints on his neck.” The investigator tossed the folder on the table and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, yeah, criminal investigation has really advanced. Our lab boys can actually get prints off a corpse, especially when those fingers are pressed hard into the flesh. In your anger, you started choking the man, your girl’s killer, and he suddenly went limp. Dead.” This was a logical way for things to have happened in our estimation, but it was all bushwah as actual evidence. Ron knew it. I knew it. The kicker: Waddell was as convincing as hell in laying it out. I saw in Brown’s eyes it was breaking through that stonewall he cowered behind. “Finally, there’s the timing of the two bodies’ respective deaths and their being found.
“Nah,” Waddell pressed on, “it wouldn’t take much bullying from a muscle-bound mug such as you to get the truth out of a pansy like Brereton probably was. You must have gone crazy as a bedbug when you were dealing with him. Did he crack wise to you once too often? Perhaps Flora was something more, someone special to you, with her looks and all. And this bucket of lard told you she was nothing but another stupid whore with a nasty disease!” Rob finished, emphasizing his ending words.
This entire time, Lloyd had been as silent as a church mouse pissing on cotton. But that last bit pushed him over the edge. His eyes swam as his face turned purple with rage. Veins protruded from his neck and forehead. He jumped up and slammed the table with his fists. I bristled, but my cohort didn’t even flinch. The uniformed bull was on his charge in a flash, holding him fast in a bear hug from behind. “No dammit!” the struggling Brown screamed, spittle raining from his mouth. “Flora was better than that fat-assed son of a bitch thought! He had no call to say those things! He had no right to kill her! I wanted to give him what he deserved! Yeah, I tried to strangle him, but I didn’t murder him. Something else must’ve happened! He died, but not because of anything I did!”
* * *
Back in the Waddell’s office, we set fire to smokes, poured cups of joe, savored both, and relaxed. The encounter with Brereton’s killer seemed in the distant past. The broken prisoner had finally been calmed. Then, he had written and signed a full confession. In it, he elaborated on how he snatched Lewis off the street outside his hotel and drove to the abandoned warehouse that fatal night. There, he threatened his captive until the salesman admitted killing Flora in a fit of rage. In turn, the big blond lost control and tried to strangle the fat man before he went limp from what we now knew to be a heart attack. The pimp tossed the body and drove away.
“Well, it’s up to the DA, a judge, and a jury as to what happens to Lloyd Brown. I’ve done my part,” my companion reflected, stubbing his fag out in an ashtray. He laughed, “Say, don’t you have a business to run, clients to meet, somewhere to be?”
Before I could give my friend a smart-assed response, Donovan came through the door, holding a jumbled stack of papers. “I got a problem, Rob!”
I smiled, but said nothing. The aggravation wrinkles in Rob’s forehead told me he knew what I was thinking. And I was certain his day was just beginning. ©
