uniform was guarding the door as we went through. He nodded at Quirk's badge and we went past him into the death room. Behind us I heard the cop say to someone, 'Put the goddamned piece up her snatch and pulled the trigger.'
Quirk heard him too. He stopped, turned, stepped to the door, and gestured the red-nosed cop inside.
A reporter yelled at him, 'Lieutenant, Lieutenant.'
Quirk ignored him and closed the door.
Speaking softly, he said to the red-nosed cop, 'The victim was a young woman who died terrified and alone. If I ever hear you talk about her like she was a piece of meat, I will personally take that fucking badge off your fucking chest and make you fucking eat it.'
The veins in the cop's thick neck swelled and he opened his mouth. Quirk stared at him steadily, standing very close, his raincoat open, his hands stuck in his back pockets.
The rest of the room went about its business. No one even heard Quirk except me and the red-nosed cop. If you didn't see Quirk's eyes, you'd have thought they were talking about lunch.
The red-nosed cop closed his mouth and straightened slightly. 'Yes, sir,' he said.
Quirk opened the room door again and nodded toward it. The red-nosed cop stepped back to his post. Smartly. Quirk turned and began to speak with the ME. I went to look at the body. There was no reason to, really. There wouldn't be a clue. But you sort of had to look at the body if you were investigating the murder. It was part of how you did it, part maybe of the way you understood what murder was, and what this one had been. I hated it, and like always, I forced myself not to squint or look obliquely. If she could suffer it, I could look at it. I did.
Belson was there, by the window, looking at the room. I'd seen him work before. It was how he did it. He stood and took in the room and absorbed it, and after a while he could tell you everything in the room and explain why it was as it was. His thin face was placid, almost dreamy. The thin wisp of blue smoke from his cigar drifted up past his eyes and curled toward the window.
I walked over and stood beside him, watching the ID people dusting and measuring and photographing.
'Anything different?' I said.
He shook his head, still looking at the room.
'How about lab reports from the other cases?'
'What do you think?' Belson said.
'I think the semen analysis shows he's blood type A, and secretes PGM
I,' I said.
'Blood type C,' Belson said.
'Which means he could be any one of two million males in greater Boston.'
Belson still gazed at the room.
'Forty-five percent of all white males are blood type C. Eighty percent of all males secrete PGM when they ejaculate. Fifty-eight percent of them are white. That shit is good for eliminating suspects, but it's useless when you don't have any. He didn't have a vasectomy either.'
'Whose room is it?' I said.
'Hers. No booze. No sign the bed had been slept in. No sign the door had been forced.'
'I suppose no one heard the shot,' I said.
'He probably muffled it with a pillow,' Belson said. He inhaled some cigar smoke and let it out slowly. 'Her body would have muffled it some.'
I nodded.
'We got people checking all the guests. Figure he might have stayed here. Figure it's hard to walk around carrying twenty feet of rope, a roll of duct tape, and a gun without being noticed.'
'Could wrap the rope around your waist,' I said, 'under your shirt, put a small roll of duct tape in your pocket.'
'Yep,' Belson said. 'Or carry it in a briefcase. But we're checking anyway. You never know.'
'She tied the same way?'
'I haven't compared the photos and the write-ups,' Belson said, 'but it looks the same.'
'We should check that,' I said. Belson nodded. Quirk came to stand with us.
'Hotel staff,' Quirk said. 'Guests, people drinking in the bar?'
'Dino's collecting all the credit card receipts,' Belson said. 'Richie's got the staff, O'Donnell and Rourke got the guests.'
'Parking?' Quirk said.
'Unattended,' Belson said. 'We got the registration of everything that's in the lot, but we got no way to know who was there and left.'
'Okay. I'll talk with the press,' Quirk said. 'We got someplace set aside?'
'The ballroom, second floor.'
Quirk nodded and moved toward the door. I went with him. 'They've heard about you,' Quirk said as we went down in the elevator. 'You may as well be around while they ask me about you.'
