'Fun guy,' Harry said, as Shelton's boot steps disappeared down the hall. 'Wonder does he do parties?'
While Harry checked for the file box, I promenaded through Jerrold Elton Nelson's life. If I'd been handed a dictionary and allowed one word for the surroundings, I'd have circled meagre, choosing the Brit spelling to add a Dickensian twist to the sparseness. The furniture looked like rental-company repos: just enough use left to make it salable.
The TV was a nineteen-inch make I'd never heard of. The flatware pocketed from cheap restaurants. The bed a king-size box spring and mattress on the floor. A squat chest was beside the bed and in it I found a twenty, two tens, and a fistful of coins, mostly pennies. A weight bench centered the living room, weights, barbells, and dumb- bells scattered around it. When closed the mirrored closet doors reflected the bed.
The only place abundance ruled was the bathroom. Nelson had more primping supplies than a poodle parlor: shampoos, conditioners, rinses, holding sprays. There were mouthwashes, skin washes, hand washes, creams, lotions, jellies. I counted seven hair brushes and three blow dryers. He owned four different kinds of tweezers. What and where did he tweeze?
While I counted colognes I was at eleven Harry came in with the aluminum box and held it up for my inspection. Larger than a lunch box, smaller than a briefcase. Handled. A hinged opening at the top.
I said, 'And?'
Harry flipped the box upside down and the top dropped open. Nothing fell out.
'Empty but for echoes. No forms, bank statements, or newspaper clippings.'
'They've got to be there,' I said. 'They're on the list.'
Harry tossed the box on the bed. 'Yeah, that's what I used to say at Christmas, Cars. Somebody got here before us and whatever's in that box is as gone as my high round ass.'
I stood in the middle of the shabby apartment and stroked my chin exactly the way perplexed detectives do on TV. 'My, my, what do you make of that?' I puzzled.
Squill had instituted daily 4:30 p.m. meetings since our get-together with the brass. It was him, Burlew, Lieutenant Guidry of the Crimes Against Persons Unit, Tom Mason, and any other precinct detective who felt they could make a contribution. Today, this was Jim Archibold and Perk Delkus from D-2. Usually this meeting was to report leads from snitches on the street, which, like most snitch-generated leads, were constructed from hope and horse shit. Hundreds of man-hours went into chasing snitch-generated phantoms. Squill reported our meetings to the brass, giving him a stranglehold over information. I'd seen the chief exactly once since our ecumenical assembly, on television, where he was calm and reassuring and used Squill's vocabulary.
Squill entered and assumed head position at the table, the omnipresent Burlew beside him, chomping his pulp.
'Let's make it quick, folks, got a crisis brewing with Reverend Dayton's five-bucks-fucky-sucky daughter. Anything new on the Nelson-Deschamps cases?' Squill's eyes glittered and I figured it was because the preachers'- kid incident had him working the media, his only true talent.
The meeting commenced with other teams speaking first and often redundantly. We'd already shared info this morning without a big table, without Squill as a moderator, and without a combined ten man-hours lost. Tobias and Archer had discovered Deschamps was involved in a civil suit, trying to recover money owed for a design job. Nelson had been arrested for soliciting in Pensacola two years back. The incidents needed proforma checking, but neither seemed to have a bearing on the cases. Squill would nonetheless tell the media two promising new leads were being investigated.
When the others finished, I added our info.
'We've got an odd incident, Captain. When Nelson's apartment was tossed, the report mentioned a box containing bank statements, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and the like. Harry and I checked the box its contents were gone.'
Squill waved an imperious hand and revisited an apologia designed for budget-request meetings. 'A mistaken entry in the catalog,' he dismissed. 'Happens all the time, much as we'd like to believe the contrary. Too many cases, too few personnel, tired eyes doing the cataloging…'
'Bill Harold and Jamal Taylor did the cataloging. Taylor definitely recalls going through the box and itemizing.'
'It was a thief, then, Ryder. We can't put a twenty-four-hour guard on everything.'
'The tape was intact. Plus this thief ignored a TV and about fifty bucks in order to steal a handful of paper.'
Squill shook his head as if amused. 'Are you going somewhere with this?'
'It's in the report. Deschamps and Talmadge met through the personals in the News Beat I wanted to see if any of the newspaper clippings mentioned were from the News Beat or the personals section of the Register. Maybe Nelson was contacted the same way. It's a long shot, but I want to rule out personals ads as the victim- selection process.'
Burlew emitted some form of noise, a burp or a grunt. Squill looked at him before aiming his eyes back at me. 'It's not your goddamned job, Ryder. You and Nautilus are supposed to be the Psychopathological Crime team. If I remember from the forming of this cobbled-together unit, that's the angle you're supposed to be working. The psychological aspect? Like what does the writing on the bodies mean?'
'I have no idea.'
'No idea? Great. How about, do you know if the writing's important?'
'To the killer, yes. But it may be so intensely personal that '
Squill smirked. 'You think it's important. But here you are chasing your tail about some supposed newspaper scraps.'
'It's all we have.'
Squill shook his head. 'Damn right it is. For all your squatting and grunting you're producing nothing. Nada. Zip. Who is this guy?
What's he think like? What do the words on the bodies mean?'
'You don't just rub your hands over the words and they come to you.'
His smirk turned to shark teeth. 'Don't you smart-mouth me, mister.'
'I was explaining why papers removed from the home of a dead man might have significance.'
Squill sat back, suddenly disinterested, and made his pronouncement.
'Let the district detectives handle the day-to-day work, Ryder. If Piss-it does nothing but walk the tracks of the other teams' he flung his hands up 'what the hell good is it?'
Harry said, 'It was walking the tracks of the other teams that gave us the missing papers in the first place.'
Squill ignored Harry and stood. 'Anyone have anything else to say?'
His tone said he wouldn't be happy if they did.
'Dismissed,' he said. 'Next time let's try for some hard leads.'
As he strode out the door he spat the words Piss-it just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Harry and I sat at the table and studied our hands as everyone filed out. Tom thumped us each on the shoulder as he passed. 'Y'all really eating the shit sandwich on this one, guys,' he said, dolefully. 'I'll be damn glad to get you back.'
'And we'll be damn glad to get there,' Harry growled.
We returned to the office and I flung my notes on my desk. 'Squill calls us in, he waves us off. He wants us on the street, he wants us off the street. He's got no idea what the hell he's doing.'
Harry sat heavily in his chair. 'It's Squill, Cars. He knows exactly what he's doing. Trouble is, we don't.'
I tumbled thoughts over in my head. 'Harry, if the PSIT turns up leads, but someone else pursues them to a bust, does the unit get any credit?'
Harry's sad eyes provided the answer. We'd been rip sawing the cases night and day and in return had just been informed we were incompetent screw-ups, an opinion now churning up the pipe to the brass. But if we did uncover something, Squill could subvert it by claiming the leads had arisen within the normal parameters of the investigation and had had nothing to do with the PSIT. I began to hear the clocking ticking on the unit. Or the first faint notes of a death knell.
The offices of the Mobile News Beat were in a strip center on the south side of town, tucked between an alley and defunct hobby shop. A hand-lettered sign was taped inside a front window ghosted with the lettering of
