Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 by Angel in Black (v5.0) Read Free Book Online Page A

You’ve got a lot to do. Let me just get out of your way. . . .”
    The Hat put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you pitch in? A man of your expertise. What have you noticed?”
    So I shared my observations with them, as I had with Bill Fowley, pointing here, pointing there: the lack of blood, the clean nature of the bisection itself, the discarded cement sack, the bloody obscured footprint on the driveway, the tire marks.
    “You see, Brownie? A master detective, our friend from Chicago.”
    We were still on the sidewalk, near the corpse.
    “You’ve hardly left anything for us to do, Nate.” The Hat leaned over the corpse, touched the white flesh of her thigh, near where a chunk had been carved away. “She’s cold. . . .” He eased his hand underneath her, just a little. He looked up at me in surprise. “Ground’s wet.”
    I frowned. “Dew?”

    Brown frowned. “Do what?”
    Hansen nodded at me. “She was left here before dawn, when the ground was still wet with dew. . . . I’d say this body was washed, perhaps soaked in water, possibly scrubbed. . . .”
    I’d forgotten to mention the bristles; I pointed those out.
    Hansen, still kneeling, nodded. “Possibly an effort to remove latent prints.”
    Brown—who, of course, was also kneeling—said, “Maybe she was strangled . . . Look at those ligature marks on her neck.”
    “I’m not so sure she was strangled,” the Hat said. “That large wound to the head could have caused a fatal concussion.”
    I was staring at the girl’s face; I didn’t want to—but I was compelled, as if I were trying to find the pretty features somewhere there, despite the battered forehead and the carved clown’s grin.
    The Hat, standing, brushing off his expensive suit, picked up on that: he didn’t miss much.
    “What is it, Nate? There’s something personal, here. My nose is twitching again.”
    “It’s just the flies, Harry.”
    “Don’t kid a kidder, Nate. What is it? What were you seeing when you looked down at her?”
    And what I told him, as far as it went, was the truth: “It’s . . . she looks like my wife, is all. A little like my wife . . . and it shakes me up, looking at her. You mind if I . . . ?”
    “No. You can move away. Say—where I can reach you?”
    “At the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
    His eyebrows rose. “Very nice. You and Fred must be doing well.”
    “Maybe so, but my suits still aren’t as nice as yours, Harry.”
    The tiny mouth grinned, a hole in his face filled with teeth. “It isn’t just about money, Nate—it’s also about good taste. . . . Ah! Lieutenant Haskins!”
    I turned as Haskins, back from his mission, strode up, giving me an excuse to fade back to the street. That fucking Fowley—where the hell was he?
    “Ray Pinker is on his way,” Haskins said.
    “Fine job, Lieutenant,” the Hat said. He looked toward wherethe vacant lot yawned at the backyards of distant, finished homes. Several uniformed officers were picking through the weeds and grass. “And what are those gentlemen up to?”
    “I thought we should get started, going over the ground,” Haskins said. “If anything turns up, we’ll have it ready for the lab boys.”
    A smile twitched on the Hat’s tiny mouth. “Call them off, would you? At this rate there won’t be anything for the lab to find.”
    Haskins, embarrassed, nodded, and was turning to take care of that when the Hat clutched him by the shoulder, saying, “Send them out to do something useful—let’s canvass the neighborhood for the woman who made the phone call, and perhaps locate someone else who may have seen something, anything . . . hmmm?”
    “Yes.”
    “And once you’ve done that, I want you to find some newspapers and cover up that poor girl’s body. With the sun coming out, we need to preserve the body from discoloration, for Ray Pinker and the coroner.”
    Haskins looked up at the sky—the sun indeed was starting to poke its streaky