'I have here the report on the famous landfill kill,' he said, almost with a snicker. 'Or perhaps I should say
'What's so funny?' Stenner asked.
'All the fuss,' he said. 'Where's Harvey? I want him to hear this from my own two lips.'
'Must've overslept,' Naomi said.
'Hmm. Perhaps I should wait.'
'I don't think so,' said Vail. 'You've gone this far, you better finish.'
'Okay. I'll skip the anatomical details and the long medical terms for now and just give you the essence,' Okimoto said, opening the folder. 'By the way, Eckling doesn't have this yet. I assume you will be discreet with the information for at least an hour.'
'Sure. Just get on with it,' Vail answered.
'They froze to death,' Okimoto said with a smile.
'What!' Flaherty said, finally looking up from his paper.
A deadly quiet fell over the table as Stenner, Vail, Flaherty, and Naomi stared at Okimoto, waiting for the details of his surprising announcement.
'Well, the two males froze to death and the woman suffocated,' he said to the stunned group.
'Froze to death?' Stenner repeated.
'You want my expert opinion?' said Okimoto. 'I think what happened was, they crawled into a Dempsey Dumpster somewhere, probably burrowed under the junk to keep warm - this was several weeks ago, early to mid January, we had a helluva freeze for about two weeks right after New Year's if you'll remember - and by morning two of them were dead and the woman was too weak to move. They pick up the Dumpster, haul it out to the landfill, and unloaded it. The woman suffocated in the garbage, probably after she was in the dump.'
'Good God!' Flaherty said.
'So we don't have a homicide, we have a homeless tragedy?' said Vail.
'Yeah,' Okimoto said, snickering. 'So much for Harvey's murder theory.'
Then he leaned his elbows on the table. 'Know what I think? I think maybe this happens a lot. Probably other bodies out there, but I'm not going to mention it to anybody. They'll be out there digging up the whole damn landfill.'
'They froze to death,' Stenner said half aloud and shaking his head. 'Harvey's going to be crushed.'
'I hear he was on the computer network tracking down missing persons from all over the state,' Okimoto said, and started to laugh. He finished his coffee. 'Tell you what, tell Harvey the murder weapon was a refrigerator.' Then he left, still chuckling to himself.
'Harvey finally blew one,' Flaherty said, turning back to his paper. 'Him and his intuition.'
'He's usually right,' said Naomi. 'Give the devil his due.'
'Yeah, but he kind of rubs it in, don't you think?' Flaherty said. 'Anybody else notice that, that he kind of rubs our noses in it because we don't remember some oddball bit of information like the day John Dillinger was killed, something like that. Hell, John Dillinger was killed thirty years before I was born.'
'July twenty-second, 1934,' said Naomi. 'In front of the old Biograph Theatre. Actually, it's not too far from here.' She smiled at Flaherty's surprised look and added with a wink, 'It's part of our local history, darling, don't feel bad.'
When they got to the office, Parver was already there, pacing back and forth at the rear of the big room, drinking a cup of coffee and psyching herself up.
'Ready for battle?' Vail called to her as he entered his office and peeled off his jacket and tie.
She nodded and kept pacing.
'What's your plan?'
'No bail. Go to the grand jury as soon as possible.'
'She's gonna fight you,' Vail said.
'Well, we'll just have to kick ass,' Parver answered, still pacing.
Vail smiled. 'That's my girl,' he said.
