Scent of Evil by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page A

eight, and great-grandmother of an infant girl. She seemed born to the task of making order out of chaos and, in the managing of her burgeoning brood, had turned discretion into the Eleventh Commandment. She’d come to us one year ago, looking for a challenging way to fill her hours, and had proved to be a paper-management wizard, an ability which had allowed me to stay being a cop instead of becoming an office jockey. If anyone asked me who really headed the detective bureau, I was hard pressed to deny her the honor.
    Tyler tore off his rubber gloves and crossed over to his partitioned cubicle, right next to Klesczewski’s, wiping his sweaty hands on his apron. He opened the top drawer of his desk and removed a fat manila envelope. “Needless to say, I haven’t looked at them yet.”
    He poured out about seventy eight-by-ten glossies—two film rolls’ worth, one taken by Patrolman Pierre Lavoie right after the construction crew called us in, the other taken by Tyler during the excavation, detailing its progress.
    I pulled out one near the top of the pile. “This is what caught Ernie Wallers’s eye—these smooth footprints.” Wallers had been afraid he’d covered them all when he’d dug the hole down to the dead man’s hand, but the photo I was holding showed at least one print, clean and in sharp focus, with a ruler laid alongside for reference. Lavoie had been very thorough.
    Tyler looked at the picture carefully, his face peaceful and content. When there was none of this kind of work to be done, he was just another detective, digging into burglaries, car thefts, assaults, or anything else that came our way. To him, those times represented the desert between oases.
    “Looks like one of those comfort-tread shoes: soft crepe sole running flat from toe to heel.”
    I thought of the print I’d made for Ernie Wallers in the dust. It had been similar, smooth and even, with no cut where standard soles curved away from the ground to make way for a hard, half-round heel. “Like what cops wear.”
    “Cops, nurses, ambulance attendants, people with bad feet. Here’s where we found the cigarette.” He showed me a photo of a patch of earth to the right of the partially uncovered body.
    “I don’t see anything.”
    “It’s not there; this is an early shot. I’m just saying that’s where it was—some two inches or so below the surface, meaning it was tossed there partway through the burial.”
    “Or placed to look that way.”
    He gave me an odd look. “You have a devious mind.”
    I couldn’t deny it. I’d always thought it was an occupational hazard. “What’d you find under the bridge?”
    “Haven’t had time to analyze it yet. One thing, though—the guy obviously loved gum, and he wasn’t particular. What you and Ron found was the latest sample, but he made lots of deposits. The neat thing is, he always lumped three sticks together to make a bigger wad.”
    “Three sticks at once? That’s enough to choke on.”
    Tyler wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. The point being, it’s a personality trait—something he always does. I thought you might like that as a tidbit till I can really look into the rest of it.”
    The phone buzzed on Harriet’s desk. She left Ron’s cubicle, picked it up, and motioned to me to grab it on Tyler’s extension.
    “Gunther.”
    “Hi, Joe.” I recognized Billy Manierre’s softly paternal voice. “John Woll just walked in—said he heard about the body on the radio. I showed him the photograph. Turns out he knew the guy.”
    I thanked him and hung up the phone. It should have been good news, which of course it was. But I didn’t feel elated. Somehow, in my subconscious, a warning bell sounded in the distance. Perhaps it was the coincidence that the same officer who could identify our John Doe was also the one whose squad car was last seen parked near his grave.

4
    JOHN WOLL AND BILLY MANIERRE were in the patrol lieutenants’ office on the other side of the building’s