CHAPTER 9
Nohar parked the Jerboa in front of Daryl Johnson's ranch. He stayed in the car. Shaker Heights still made him paranoid about cops. It was early Sunday morning and he suspected the slow-moving bureaucracy at University Hospital was just now discovering him missing. Shortly afterward, the cops would be notified. Nohar didn't know exactly what would happen then. He was a witness to Young's explosion—they should want a statement from him. But Binder was pressuring the cops. Binder probably wouldn't want any real close investigation of Young's empty house, or the records Young had destroyed.
At least Nohar's investigation, such as it was, was progressing. He had checked the police records again. The air-conditioning had been going full blast when Johnson was blown away.
Nohar yawned and raked his claws across the upholstery of the passenger seat. He spent a few minutes picking foam rubber as he looked at the sheathing covering the picture window. His watch beeped. It was eight, Manny would be answering his comm.
Nohar took the voice phone out of the glove compartment and called him.
'Dr. Gujerat here. Who—' There was a pause as Manny must have read the text on the incoming call. 'Nohar? Where in the hell are you? I got to the hospital during nocturnal visiting hours. You were gone—'
Fine, his disappearance had been discovered that
100 S. ANDREW SWANN
much earlier. 'Manny, I'm fine. I need to ask you something—'
'Like the percentage of untreated bullet wounds that become gangrenous?
Damnit, you weren't in the hospital just to be inconvenienced.'
Nohar shook his head. At least Manny wasn't saying, 'I told you so.' Even though he'd been right about getting involved with pink business.
'I needed to feed Cat.'
'Great, just great. I won't even tell you how silly that sounds. You couldn't have gotten me to do that?'
Nohar thought of the ratboys. 'No, I couldn't.'
Manny sighed and slowed his chittering voice. 'I know how you feel about hospitals, but you can't avoid them forever. Things have gotten a lot better. They don't make mistakes like that anymore—' Nohar knew Manny stopped because of the ground he was treading. Thanks for reminding me, Nohar thought. He was about to say it, but, for once, he managed to keep his mouth shut.
'You better promise to come over and let me look at that wound. There are a lot more appropriate things to die of.'
'Promise,'
'I know you didn't just call to say hi. What do you want?'
Nohar caught the dig at him. It was unlike Manny. Manny really was worried about him. 'Before I ask you, promise me something.'
'What?'
'When this is over, we get out together. No business, no corpses.'
There was a distinct change in the quality of Man-ny*s voice that made Nohar feel better. 'Sure . . .'
Damn, Manny was almost speechless. 'I wanted to ask you about the time of death. How accurate can that be?'
Manny found his professional voice. 'Depends on a lot of things. The older the corpse, the less accurate.
FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
101
Need a good idea of the ambient temperature and the humidity—'
That's what Nohar wanted to hear. 'What if they were wrong about the temperature? Fifteen degrees too high.'
'Definitely throw the estimate off.'
'How much?'
'Depends on what they thought the temperature was to begin with.'
'Thirty-two at least.'
Nohar could hear the whistle of air between Manny *s front teeth. 'Nohar, the time of death could be put back by up to a factor of two. If the humidity was off, maybe more.'
'Thanks, Manny.'
'You're welcome, I think.'
Nohar hung up the phone and looked at the ranch. All the little nagging problems with Johnson's death— And it was so damn simple.
Problem—it took much too long for the local population to notice the gaping hole if it had been shot when Johnson was shot. Solution—the window was shot out long after Johnson was dead. Probably during the thunderstorm that Thursday, so few people would have heard the glass—real glass, expensive—exploding and none would recognize its significance.
It had taken Young to make Nohar think of that. Young said he had seen a morey kill Johnson. 'One of you,' he said. The only way Young could have seen the killer shoot Johnson was if he, the killer, and Johnson were all more or less in the same place when Johnson died. If the assassin was in the house, he could have offed Johnson with one shot—no need for a shattering window to draw Johnson's attention. Johnson could have remained facing the comm, oblivious enough to be shot dead center in the back of the head.
Because no alarm, no break-in. That meant Johnson let him in.
With a Levitt Mark II? Not likely.
102
S. ANDREW
Johnson let in someone else—one of them—and that person let in the assassin. Yes, Johnson let in someone. Perhaps to confront the person with whatever he had found in the financial records. Young lived in the ranch with Johnson, but no one was supposed to know that. So Young would be hidden from the guest. Maybe in a darkened bedroom, looking out a crack in the door.
The guest—maybe one of the franks from MLI— talks to Johnson in the study. The frank leaves the door open, so the assassin can sneak into the living room and set up the Levitt. The door to the study must remain closed except for the last minute, to give the assassin a chance to prepare. Young would only see the gun when the frank opens the study door to give the morey killer a field of fire.
The one shot gets Derry Johnson in the back of the head. Young is in shock.
The frank and the morey clean up a little and leave.
It must have been Saturday night, after that fundraiser Young and Johnson had departed early. That would explain Johnson's state, and why no one could finger Johnson's location during the week, ung wasn't thinking right. He freaked, packed his stuff, and ran out to his empty house.
The corpse was left in an air-conditioned, climate-controlled environment, until the morey with the Levitt blew away the picture window on Thursday. The storm ruined the traces of the assassin in the living room. The killing became an anonymous sniping. The time of death shifted to Wednesday and nobody got the chance to plumb the inconsistencies because Binder clamped down immediately.
Neat.
But why didn't Young call the cops?
Something had freaked Young. If Stephie was right, something beyond Johnson's death. From the way Young acted, it was something linked to the financial records. Something Johnson saw and Young didn't.
FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
103
Nohar looked back at the broken window. The police ballistics report was based entirely on the assumption that both shots came from the same place. Now the second shot, the one that blew the window out, no longer had to be in line with Johnson's head. The field of fire at the picture window was much wider. The sniper no longer had to be crouching in one of the security-conscious driveways across the street.
Nohar stood up on the passenger seat of the Jerboa and looked for good fire positions. He scanned the
