“No word yet. I didn't get that close.”
“And he was floating, huh?”
“That's what I was told.”
“Anything distinct about him?”
Jimmy thought for a moment.
“Oh yeah, he has a tattoo on his arm.”
“What kind of tattoo?”
“It's a lightning bolt, could be prison ink.”
“That's Sam Preston.”
“You knew him, Alex?”
“Not for long.”
?-2-
DANIELS
Homicide Lieutenant Jack Daniels pushed her bangs behind her ear—seeing the streaks of gray annoyed her —and frowned at the body being lifted onto the stretcher. The man's clothes and hair had begun to dry, and aside from the dull open eyes he appeared to be sleeping.
“Tour captain said he was floating,” she said.
Her partner, Sergeant Herb Benedict, had liberated his emergency beef jerky stash and was munching on some sort of pepperoni stick.
“I don't get it either. Guy looks like he just went for a swim. Couldn't have been in the drink for more than a few hours.”
“But he was floating,” she repeated. The words didn't taste right leaving her tongue.
“Maybe he just had a buoyant meal,” Herb said. “Something light and airy. You want to grab a bite after this?”
Daniels walked over to Phil Blasky, the county Medical Examiner, who was using a probe to take the liver temperature. Unlike Herb, who was portly and sported a mustache, Blasky was thin to the point of gaunt and didn't have enough hair on his entire head to keep a mouse warm in the summer.
“Eighty degrees,” he said, noticing Jack's approach. “The water is fifty-five.”
“Rigor?”
“No. No lividity yet, no livor mortis. This man was alive a few hours ago.”
“Cause of death?”
“Can't tell from a cursory examination. No visible marks on the body. Blue pallor, slightly cyanotic, but that could be from the water temperature. A drowning?”
“When they fished him out he was floating.”
“That's odd.”
Jack's frown deepened.
“Are his lungs full of water?” she asked.
Blasky pulled a syringe out of his med kit, unwrapped it, then looked around for a place to put the wrapper. Herb took it, adding the garbage to the dozen or so jerky wrappers in his breast pocket; you always knew when Herb was around because he sounded like cellophane.
“Let's see.” Blasky pushed up the corpse's shirt and angled the needle between the damp, pale ribs. He pulled back the plunger, getting a small quantity of blood and a larger quantity of air.
“Suffocation causes cyanosis too.” Jack folded her arms. “Give his diaphragm a squeeze.”
Blasky performed a partial Heimlich, there was a wet popping sound and something shot out of the deceased's mouth and arced through the air. Jack tracked it down, squatting and peering at the asphalt between her black Ferragamo pumps.
“What is it?” Herb stood next to her. He wasn't built to squat.
“I have no idea. Some sort of disk. A poker chip?”
She looked closer. It was white, maybe three centimeters in diameter. If it hadn't been stuck in a floater's throat, Jack would have guessed it was a Communion wafer.
Without prompting, Herb handed her a plastic evidence baggie and a wrapped pepperoni stick. She used the jerky to poke it. Metal. And thick, about a centimeter.
She flipped the circular object over.
Herb said, “Holy Guacamole, Batman.”
Her partner's comment was appropriate. On the other side of the disk was a picture of Batman. A close-up of his face, the caped crusader in three-quarter profile, looking suitably heroic. Jack maneuvered Batman into the baggie.
Herb nudged her. “Should I call Gotham City, tell Commissioner Gordon that the Dark Knight has gone bad?”
Jack stood up, smoothed out her skirt with one hand while holding up the baggie with the other.
“You, my friend,” she said to Herb, “are too old to be such a big geek.”
“Batman is cool. Can I have my jerky back?”
Jack complied, then caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Two men were approaching. One, a uniform she recognized as a beat cop named Gordon. The other, a man about forty, medium build, with strong Cuban features punctuating a slightly sad face. Jack knew him as well. She shoved the baggie into the coat pocket of her blazer and put her hands on her hips.
“This scene is off limits to members of the press.” She had some steel in her voice, and though her words were to Gordon her eyes were on the reporter.
“Lieutenant, Alex, uh, Mr. Chapa here, he says he knew the floater, uh, the deceased.”
“He can pay his respects after we release the body. In the meantime, if he'd like to go for a swim himself, the Chicago Police Department would be happy to assist him.”
Alex Chapa took a step forward, something Daniels viewed as brave but not wise.
“Officer Gordon, tell the Lieutenant I just saw this man alive a few hours ago.”
Jack narrowed her eyes. “Did anyone see you two together?”
“I'll save you the trouble. He owns a collectible shop on Clark, has a closed circuit camera. You can view the tape, which will show you he was still alive when I left.”
“That doesn't prove anything,” Herb said, stepping up to meet Chapa. “You could have killed him after he left.”
“I didn't kill him, Sergeant. I want to help.”
“Do you like Batman?”
“Batman? Why?”?Jack stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with her partner.
“Officer Gordon, take Mr. Chapa down to the station and get a statement. If you make him wait for more than six hours, I'll buy you lunch.”
“Sorry, Alex,” Gordon said. “Let's go.”
Gordon placed a hand on the reporter's shoulder, pulling him backward. Chapa shrugged away.
“Lieutenant Daniels, I know in the past the Suburban Herald hasn't treated you with the respect you deserve…”
“Here's the direct quote. 'If Daniels paid as much attention to her job as she does to her wardrobe, maybe Chicago wouldn't have so many unsolved homicides.'”
“I didn't write that. But it's nice to know that someone still reads the papers.”
“Not me, Mr. Chapa. My boss. He wasn't amused, and neither am I.”
Chapa attempted a smile. “I apologize. Still, that suit you've got on is very flattering.” He looked over at Jimmy, who was studying his shoes.
Jack turned to the uniform. “Make him wait ten hours, I'll see to it you get a promotion.”
Officer Gordon again tried to lead Chapa away, and again the reporter twisted out of the hold.
“Don't you find it odd, Lieutenant, that this is the fourth reported floater in eight weeks?”
“Potentially unrelated,” Daniels said. “If you knew anything about floaters—”
Chapa interrupted. “—I'd know that bodies in water tend to sink for the first several days. They only float after bacteria begin to decompose the tissue, releasing gas. Those other bodies had been dead for weeks before
