'Reach out and touch somebody,' Hawk said.
'Hi Brad,' another woman's voice. 'It's Lisa. I'm feeling neglected. Call me.'
We listened to all thirteen calls, the mechanical machine voice announcing time and day of call after each one. The calls spanned at least a week. Two were from the Brighton branch of DePaul Federal Savings asking him to please call. One was from an outfit called Import Credit Company in regard to his car lease payment, please call. There was a call from the Cask and Carafe Wine Shop saying that his check had been returned and asking when he could come in and settle his account. Another angry call about money. Another call from Lisa, this one more urgently wondering why he hadn't called. 'I don't want to think I'm just another notch on your gun,' she said. Five other calls from women following up on a recent evening, or looking forward to one in the offing.
I wrote down all the names.
'Brad seems to have mixed success with women,' I said.
'But not from lack of trying,' Hawk said.
'And he's living in one room in Brighton,' I said, 'and not paying his bills.'
'So, unless he very thrifty,' Hawk said, 'the story he told Susan is right.'
'Sounds near dissolution to me,' I said.
'You find an address book anywhere?' Hawk said.
'No.'
'Checkbook?'
'Nope.'
'Maybe his office,' Hawk said.
I reached in my coat pocket and took out the keys and found the one marked office.
'Maybe,' I said.
chapter twenty-one
THE FIRST THING we noticed when we went into Sterling's office was the smell. Hawk and I looked at each other. We both knew what it was. I closed the office door behind us and fumbled for the light switch, and found it to the right of the door, and turned on the lights. There was nothing unusual in the outer office. The door to Sterling's private office was closed. As I opened it I was already dreading what I'd find, and dreading telling Susan about it. I turned on the lights. The body was there, facedown on the rug in front of Sterling's desk, a wide black soak of blood showing on the rug under him, the head turned at an angle only death permitted. I turned on the light. The smell was bad. The body had begun to bloat. I didn't want to look. I held my breath and went and squatted on my heels and looked at the face. It wasn't much of a face anymore. It wasn't much of anything anymore. But it wasn't Sterling. I stood and breathed again, trying not to breathe through my nose.
'Not Sterling,' I said.
'Anybody we know.'
'I don't know him.'
Hawk bent over and stared at the corpse for a moment.
'Nope,' he said and walked to the desk and turned on the lamp.
'We're going to have to toss the place,' I said.
'I know.'
'I'll take this office,' I said. 'You do the outer.'
'You know what you're looking for?' Hawk said.
'Clues.'
I took two pairs of disposable latex gloves from the Nike bag and gave one pair to Hawk. We put them on. There was a computer on Sterling's desk. I turned it on. It was a Mac, like Susan's. I clicked open the hard drive. There were twenty-six items on the hard drive including a folder marked 'Addresses.' I opened the drawers in Sterling's desk and found some blank disks. I put one in the computer and copied the hard disk onto it. I put the copy on the desk and shut off the computer. I went through Sterling's desk. I concentrated on breathing through my mouth, and on avoiding eye contact with the corpse. I found no checkbook. The bottom right drawer had a lock. I found a key for it among the ones I'd taken from Sterling's apartment. In the drawer was a narrow case made of gray translucent plastic. In the case were a dozen disks. I took the case out of the drawer and left the drawer unlocked. I added the copy of the hard disk I had made and put the whole thing in the Nike bag on the desktop. I got on my hands and knees and looked under the desk. I turned the desk chair upside down and looked at the underside of it. I rummaged through the wastebasket. I ran my hand over the door frame and felt under the edges of the rug. Feeling under the rug got me closer to the corpse than I wanted to be. I stood up and went and checked the windows. They didn't open. I paused in a corner of the office away from the corpse and surveyed the room. It was a suspended ceiling and a thorough search would include looking behind it, and in the ventilation ducts. But that was too much time invested for what it was likely to earn me. I wanted to see what I had on the disks and I didn't want any cops showing up and taking them away from me. I went to the desk and got the Nike bag and detoured around the corpse into the outer office.
'Anything?' I said.
Hawk was sitting on Patti's desk, still wearing the sanitary gloves.
'Usual stuff,' Hawk said. 'Invoices, receipts, letters, promotional material. Only thing interesting is what I didn't find.'
'Which is?'
