Area of Suspicion by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

working, not rudely, but with air of a man getting routine details out of the way so he could talk in peace. He glanced at reports, scrawled his initials, dropped them in his ‘out’ basket. I guessed his age at about forty. He was a pallid, heavy man, and he looked as if his health was poor. His hair was a scurfy brown, and the flesh of his face hung loose from his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, sagging in folds against his collar. He breathed heavily through his mouth and his fingers were darkly stained with nicotine. He finished the last document, and looked at me. His chair creaked. He took the cigar from his ash tray and relit it, turning it slowly over the flame of the kitchen match.
    “You’re the brother, eh? A sorry thing, Mr. Dean. A mess. Glad we could wrap it up so fast. What can we do for you?”
    “I flew in last night. I read the newspaper account. I thought you could tell me the details.”
    “A phone tip came in. If it wasn’t for informants, this business would be a lot roughe than it is.” His voice was wheezy and pitched high. “We sent a squad car over to the north side and picked up this Shennary fella. We’ve got two witnesses to testify that Shennary left his room around ten Friday night and didn’t come back until nearly two. The gun was in his room. Thirty-eight automatic. Hadn’t been cleaned since it was fired.”
    He grunted as he bent over and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a Manila folder and opened it, took out a glossy print, and placed it in front of me. He used his pencil as a pointer.
    “This here is a microphotograph from ballistics. This is the test slug, and this is the slug out of your brother’s body. See how it’s a perfect match. This Shennary is a punk. Picked up three times for armed robbery and did time twice. He was wanted for violation of parole. Here’s his pretty face.”
    He slid the mug shot on top of the ballistics print. I picked it up. There was a double photograph, full face and profile, with a reproduction of fingerprints underneath, with print classification, and a reproduction of a typed slip giving vital statistics and criminal record. He looked to be in his middle twenties. He had dark eyes, deeply set, a lantern jaw, overlong, dark hair, and black brows that met above the bridge of his nose. He looked weak, shifty, sullen, and unremarkable. Looking at his face made Ken seem more dead, more completely gone.
    “Paroled, you said?”
    Portugal leaned back and frowned at his cigar and relit it. “I’m just a cop, not a social worker, Mr. Dean. Some people think they all ought to serve full time. I wouldn’t blame you if you think so, seeing how this one killed your brother. But a lot of them get the parole and straighten out. It’s exceptions like this Shennary who spoil it for the others. He must have convinced the parole board he was going to be okay, or he wouldn’t have been out. He’s a guy without pressure or contacts to do him any good. So he turns out to be a little man with a big gun and bad nerves, and that’s too bad for him and for your brother.”
    “Could I get a look at him?”
    Portugal shrugged. “If you want to, I guess so.”
    “I don’t want to bother you.”
    “No trouble. Come on.”
    We went down the stairs and across the court to another wing. Portugal walked heavily, leaning forward, teeth clamped on the cigar. His suit was red-brown, shiny in the seat, the jacket wrinkled and hip sprung. An armed patrolman ran the elevator. Portugal asked for the top floor. There was a bull’s-eye window in the door at the top floorand a man looked through at us and unlocked the door. The man grinned at Portugal and, as he went back to his green steel desk, said, “Aces back to back. Don’t you ever get tired?”
    “Ralphie, you know you can’t beat aces with a pair of ladies. We are calling on my pal, Mister Shennary, esquire.”
    When the elevator went back down, the man called Ralphie unlocked