Thieu felt a wash of something like relief. He decided to speak. 'You know, Len, I'm glad to hear you say that. I thought it rolled right off you.'
Faro pulled at his bug, shook his head slowly side to side. 'Nope,' he said.
When Thieu reached Gerson on the phone, the lieutenant as expected wasn't enthusiastic about coming down and checking out the murder scene himself, but he wasted no time at all with his administrative duties. Upon learning that the victims were Clint Terry and Randy Wills, the two chief suspects in both the Creed and Silverman homicides, he told Thieu-again, if he didn't mind and with other suitable disclaimers-that it sounded like efficiency would be better served if Cuneo and Russell were assigned to this homicide as well as the other two. He told Thieu that the two inspectors were running a little late getting into the office this morning since they were stopping at the lab for some ballistics results before reporting in. But Gerson would call dispatch and send them directly to the crime scene just as soon as he got off the phone with Thieu.
Which he did shortly, leaving Thieu and Faro standing out in the street by the coroner's van. But when Thieu started explaining Gerson's decision about Cuneo and Russell to Faro, the crime scene specialist stopped him before he'd gotten very far. 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You want to run that by me again? You're telling me those guys in there, they were suspects in the Creed thing?'
Thieu nodded. 'Yeah, and them plus a third guy named Holiday for Silverman.'
Faro pulled at his bug. 'So the theory is what?'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, you just told Gerson this homicide was related to Creed and Silverman, so he's sending over Russell and Cuneo, right?'
'Right.'
'So what's the relation?'
'The relation is that they're suspects in both those murders.'
But Faro was shaking his head. 'They killed Silverman. Then they killed Creed. Now they're both dead. And this guy Holiday, he's the only one left?'
'Yeah, looks like. Which makes him…' Thieu cocked his head. 'What's the problem, Len?'
Faro took a long beat deciding what he'd say. Finally, he said, 'This might be a hell of a coincidence, okay, and we're trained to hate and mistrust them, but they happen. My take is that this isn't any of that-Silverman and Creed, I mean. It's completely unrelated.'
'It can't be. These are the same guys.'
'Be that as it may, I've seen a half a dozen of these.'
'Like this? Not like this.' Thieu motioned toward the apartment. 'Like that?'
Faro's head bobbed down, then up. 'Spittin' image, or close enough. This is a pickup gone bad. I'd bet my badge on it. Which might close Silverman and even Creed, okay, except maybe for this other guy, Holiday, but these stiffs here, this case-they ought to stay with you.'
'With me? In what way with me?'
'Your case. They've got nothing to do with Cuneo and Russell's other work.'
Thieu rubbed his hands together against the cold. 'They do if.. .'
'Nope. Not unless you think Holiday did this, which I'm betting he didn't. You're thinking he did?'
'I didn't know. I just assumed he must be in it somehow. He fits.'
'A falling out among thieves, something like that?'
'Something like.'
Suddenly Faro shivered. 'Jesus, it's cold. I'm going to go tell the team we're hanging fire another hour or so. Send 'em out for coffee.' He fished in his pockets, brought out his keys, pointed. 'That's my car over there, the brown one.' He flipped the keys to Thieu. 'Get the heat going, would you? Have a seat. I'll be right back.'
Thieu was still pondering the pickup gone bad theory when Faro opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. 'So where were we?'
'This should stay my case.'
'That's it. And hey, no offense to Dan and Lincoln, nothing personal. It's just that their theory don't hold.'
Thieu crossed his arms, hugging himself. It hadn't warmed up much. 'So what's yours?'
'What happened? Easy. The two vies in there went out to party last night and found some guy who wanted to play, so they brought him back here. You see some of that powder on the bureau? Ten to one it's coke, maybe heroin or crank, one of those. So they're getting a lot high and a little kinky, maybe one of 'em's already naked-I'm thinkin' the big guy…'
'That's Terry. Why him first?'
'We'll get to that. But see if this don't play. So Terry's tied up in the chair just like he is now, maybe they're playin' a little with him and the two other guys-well, the guy they picked up and the one he thinks is the girl…'
'Wills.'
'Yeah, whatever, so those two start to get it on. Then the pickup guy reaches down and-whoops!-gets a handful of surprise.'
'Wills isn't a woman.'
'He sure isn't. Not even a little. So the perp goes ballistic-the coroner will tell us exactly what he did next, but my guess is he strangled Wills, maybe knocked him around a little first. But he's still flying on whatever drug they're doing and completely out of his mind now with being fooled. His masculinity, if you want to call it that, is all fucked up. Except he really knew all along. Plus he's just killed Wills with Terry tied up sitting there watching him. What's he gonna do? He's in a rage and completely freaked. He's got to get out of there, but first there's business. So maybe he's gone to the bathroom since he's been there, seen the straight razor Wills shaved his whole body with. He goes back in there…'
'I think I get it from there,' Thieu said. He might have been a hard-boiled six-year veteran inspector of homicide, but he was shaking now not with the cold, but with the recitation. He didn't think he could bear to listen to Faro's certain-to-be-vivid clinical description of how the throats of both of them had been slit, or the individual steps as Randy Wills was undressed, trussed, and finally castrated.
Faro needed a moment to extract himself from his imagination. At last, he turned to Thieu. 'Anyway, my point is that whatever happened here, this was separate. Nothing to do with Creed or Silverman or anything else. This was its own thing and the case ought to belong to you if you want it.'
John Holiday loved Clint Terry-he really did-but he was going to have to fire the irresponsible son of a bitch. He was thinking this as he pulled the chairs off the tables that he'd put on them when he'd closed the place last night at two o'clock. Why did he bother? He set the last chair in its place and checked his watch. Noon. He'd closed the place up a mere ten hours ago, and thank God he'd come by just on a random check to find the door closed and nobody behind the bar. This was his only source of income and it had to be open for him to actually make some money, stay solvent and not be forced to sell cheap.
He still believed he could get a lucky streak going, maybe at poker. Lucky streaks weren't out of the question. Look at him and Michelle. With just a few solid months and a bit of luck, he could make the Ark presentable, and then maybe sell at a profit, go back into something more legitimate.
What was the matter with people? he wondered. A gay ex-convict like Clint with a questionable reputation and no real skills, where was he going to get another job as good as this one? With a laid-back boss, flexible hours, decent pay. What, if anything, was he thinking as he undoubtedly slept in this morning, making it two days in a row, knowing he was blowing the job off? All Holiday asked, essentially, was that the big galoot show up, and especially- especially!-when Holiday had pulled the night shift the day before. But first yesterday, then today. Enough was enough.
He was going to have to do it. That was all there was to it.
Fortunately, when he'd closed last night, he'd prepped the back bar and cleaned up every bit of the glass and mess-good guy and great employer that he was-so that Clint could have it easy when he opened. Now, at least, he was close to ready, albeit two hours late, as he unlocked the front door and flicked on the open sign.
