Dead Letter (Digger) by Warren Murphy Read Free Book Online

steps?" Digger asked.
    "No. There was a witness. Some woman was coming home from visiting relatives. She was across the street and she saw him. He was kind of singing to himself, then he waved over at her and she saw him slip into the stairway. She’s the one that called us. He was all juiced up. The autopsy showed that. I wonder what he was singing."
    "‘ I’ve Got A Feeling I’m Falling ’?" Digger suggested.
    "You’re too old for me, Burroughs. I don’t know that song. You from New York?"
    "No. Used to be, though. My father was a cop in New York. He’s retired."
    "What rank?"
    "He was a sergeant. He couldn’t pass the lieutenant’s exam, and he was always busting chops, so they never put him in plainclothes."
    "If you want to get along, go along. That’s what they told me when I first got here," Terlizzi said. "That’s what I do. It helps around here. Only place worse than being a cop here is in New York, I guess."
    "What makes it bad here?" Digger asked.
    "Students. All of them have too much money so you never know whose toes you’re stepping on. And then the press. They make a big deal out of everything. Let some goddam mugger get shot and you don’t read about anything else for three months. I’m gonna learn to throw knives. If anybody ever attacks me, I’m gonna toss a knife in his throat and then wipe my prints off the handle. Let the goddam papers blame somebody else. They just figure that everybody who gets shot got shot by a cop."
    "If it’s any consolation," Digger said, "you sound just like my father." Which was true. Cops in every city, no matter how big or small, always thought the press and the criminals were engaged in some giant conspiracy against the minions of law and order. "Only thing," Digger said, "was that my father wasn’t into knives. He was going to get a bullwhip and use it. Never did, though. I think it was the big disappointment of his life. Besides my mother. I’ll be getting out of your hair. Thanks for your help."
    "Don’t mention it," Terlizzi said. "Give my best to your father."
    Riding back upstairs in the elevator, Digger wondered if he had done the right thing in not telling Terlizzi about the letter Allie had received. But what was there to tell? Some asshole’s idea of humor? A witness had seen Strickland fall. Accidentally. So much for Strickland’s name being on the list as first victim. Bullshit.

    "Where the hell have you been?"
    Dr. Arlo Buehler was sitting at a breakfast table in the corner of the glass-walled living room of the large apartment overlooking Boston Harbor. A newspaper and a bottle of Scotch were in front of him and he seemed to Digger to have been paying more attention to the Scotch than to the newspaper. He was almost six feet tall, but ten pounds of extra weight made him look shorter. His features were strong and Semitic, but his light blue eyes softened his appearance and gave him the look of a loving, benevolent hawk.
    "Don’t start, buster," Digger said as he closed the door behind him and walked toward the liquor cabinet.
    "The Finlandia’s in the freezer. The way you like it," Buehler said.
    Digger dropped his suitcase on the hardwood floor and went into the small kitchenette. He poured vodka into a water glass, watching it burble thickly from the bottle, then replaced the bottle in the freezer. "What’s the matter with you?" he called out. "A tough case of athlete’s foot at the office?"
    "Blow it out your nose," Buehler called back.
    Digger carried his drink back into the living room and for the first time noticed the apartment was cluttered. Newspapers were piled in spots on the floor and there was clothing on the couch. A pair of sneakers lay in the middle of the living-room floor and there were three coffee cups on the windowsill that looked out over the harbor toward Logan Airport.
    "This place is a dump. What the hell’s going on here?" Digger asked as he sat down at the table.
    "Evvie left me," Buehler said. "She moved