Body Blows by Marc Strange Read Free Book Online Page B

King-size bed faces a big-screen television, reading material on both side tables, an ashtray on the left side, a Martha Stewart magazine on the right. Leo’s linen is perfectly sorted and aligned in the dresser drawers. I can sense Raquel’s careful attention to detail. And something more. She smoothed these stacks of laundry with her hands before she closed the drawer. I can feel it.
    The policeman lets me stare into the living room for a few seconds before he gets twitchy about my presence. The French doors are smashed. Possible point of entry. But from where? The floor below? I’ll need to get out on the terrace to see if it’s possible, but that isn’t going to happen on this trip.
    â€œSorry, sir. The Crime Scene Unit will be up here pretty soon. They want everything the way they left it.”
    â€œSure, I understand,” I say.
    Dark sky, no sunrise, rain starting to fall. The air is unnaturally warm and humid. Leo stares through the windshield, doesn’t say a word, his mood as dreary as the clouds moving in across the water. When he gets out of the car I give him my arm. He has no strength this morning.
    â€œDid you get anything to eat, sir?”
    â€œMy stomach’s in a knot,” he says.
    That makes two of us.
    Mooney and Pazzano tag-team the interviewing sessions, me in one room and Leo in another. Pazzano drops in to start things off.
    â€œHow long you been working for Leo Alexander?”
    â€œEight years.”
    He’s shorter than I am, broad in the shoulders, heavy-browed. He shuffles around the room restlessly. I get the feeling he wants to show me he can take care of himself. “How’d he come to hire you?” he asks.
    â€œI was available.”
    â€œAs his full-time bodyguard?”
    â€œSupposed to be for a week or so.
    â€œThen you took a couple of bullets for him.”
    â€œNot on purpose.”
    â€œThat’s pretty loyal for a guy on a short-term contract,” he says. “I guess he felt he owed you something, giving you a job, place to live, good salary.”
    Mooney comes in and they play it together for a while. Mooney sits across from me, hands folded on the table. Pazzano stays on point.
    â€œPretty much locked himself up there for eight years, right?”
    â€œYou could say that.”
    â€œLike he was afraid whoever took the shots might come back to do it right.”
    â€œYou’d have to ask Leo,” I say. “He’s a private man. He never told me what he was thinking.”
    â€œOr who to watch out for?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œOr why someone might hate him that much?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œMakes your job a lot harder, doesn’t it?”
    â€œThese days my job is hotel security.”
    Mooney finally speaks up. “Except last night,” he says. “Last night you were back to being a bodyguard.”
    The two of them pay Leo a visit and I sit by myself for a while, writing up a statement. I don’t much like being in a police station; you’re never there because you want to be; you’re either suspected of something, or a witness to something, or waiting for the cops to be finished with someone you know. Any minute I’m expecting them to start asking about the ruined plaque, or the switched drivers. I haven’t written those details down and I won’t bring them up until they do. Withholding information of this kind probably isn’t covered by any recognized confidentiality privilege and at some point no doubt I’ll pay for it, but right now my concern is strictly for my boss. I haven’t told him about the plaque either.
    Mooney comes back to resume our conversation.
    â€œCastle in the sky, right?” Mooney says. “Any ideas how the guy got in?”
    â€œYour guess is as good as mine, Detective.”
    â€œI figure he must’ve had an elevator key. Don’t you?”
    â€œCould be.”
    â€œUnless she let him