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

fingers through the clouds—then nodded and scurried away.
    Sighing, Harry the Hat—holding up a hand to freeze Brown in place (Simon says Stay! )—wandered over to where I was standing, in the street.
    Sidling up me, the Hat said, “I don’t think the lieutenant understands the sacred nature of a crime scene.”
    “The what?”
    “Nate, it’s sacred, this ground . . . sacred and profane, yes . . . but mostly sacred. Murder is a marriage between victim and slayer—it’s a bond formed between two people that ties them together. It’s more binding than marriage, though . . . you can divorce a mate, you can even remarry a mate . . . but you can only murder somebody once.”
    Was he needling me, with this marriage metaphor, after I mentioned the corpse reminded me of my wife?

    But I said only, “That’s, uh, hard to argue with, Harry.”
    He nodded toward the vacant lot, reached out a hand as if in benediction. “On that sacred ground, murderer and victim were together, one last time—even if he didn’t kill her, even if he only deposited the remains. And that nasty tableau, Nate, it’s a work of art, in the killer’s mind . . . and, frankly, in mine . . . it’s a reflection of his mind, his personality. . . . That sacred ground contains all the clues and evidence we might need to solve this murder, or at least it did before that boob from University allowed reporters and cops and God knows who else to trample around on it.”
    “That was some speech, Harry—but how do you know it’s a ‘he’?”
    That made him wince in thought. “What do you mean, Nate?”
    “You keep referring to the murderer as ‘he’ . . . Couldn’t it be a ‘she’?”
    “Look at that display, Nate—it’s a sex crime.”
    “Lesbians kill people, too. You see any sign of semen?”
    “She was washed clean of it.”
    “How do you know? And, anyway—ever occur to you that that smile cut in her face might mean something nonsexual?”
    The hooded eyes blinked. “Explain.”
    I shrugged. “Back in Chicago, a corpse dumped with its mouth gashed, we’d read that as somebody who got rubbed out for talking too much . . . and left as an example.”
    Now his eyes were wide; they stayed that way for a while. Then he said, as if bored to tears, “Interesting. . . .You know, I really do respect you as a detective, Nate—these insights, I appreciate them.”
    I couldn’t detect any sarcasm in that; but maybe I just wasn’t a good enough detective to do so.
    He touched his hat brim in a tip-the-hat gesture and said, “Don’t forget to make that phone call to your friend Mr. Ness for me, now, hear?”
    “Sure. I’ll call you.”
    “I wish you would. I may have my hands full.”
    He was just about to amble back to his partner when Fowley’sblue Ford rolled in. The little reporter in the tight hat and loose suit parked in the street and came over and grinned at Hansen.
    “Not surprised to see you, here, Harry,” Fowley said. “This is gonna be a big one.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh yeah. Richardson approved an extra.”
    Hansen frowned. “You’re putting out an extra edition on a simple homicide?”
    “You saw her—this is one homicide that ain’t simple. We’re gonna run with this, Harry . . . Don’t tell me you’d mind seein’ that popular feature ‘Mr. Homicide’ in the papers again?”
    The Hat thought about that, just momentarily, and then stepped away from us and—in an uncharacteristic move from someone so softspoken—called out in a booming voice, “Would the members of the press mind converging? Thank you, gentlemen . . . thank you, Aggie . . .”
    About a dozen representatives of the press—reporters and photographers—gathered around the Hat, the tired eyes in his hound-dog countenance almost shut as he made an announcement.
    “Thank you for your cooperation,” the Hat said. “I wanted to inform you of two facts. First, you’re all about to leave this crime