Detective work is not always pretty.
My office door opened. I put my hand on the .357 Mag I kept in my open top right-hand drawer.
Martin Quirk came in.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m an officer of the law.”
“Okay,” I said, and took my hand off the gun.
Quirk tossed a manila envelope on my desk, poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker on top of my file cabinet, and took it to one of my client chairs, where he sat down and took a sip.
“Whaddya doing?” he said.
“Making a list,” I said.
“Things to do with the Prince killing?”
“Yep.”
“Makes you feel like you know what to do,” Quirk said. “Don’t it.”
“It’s a very orderly list,” I said.
“Got any information in the list?” Quirk said.
“No,” I said.
“But it makes you feel like you’re making progress,” Quirk said.
“Exactly.”
“Copy of the forensics on the two guys you iced,” he said. “Take a look, tell me what you think.”
I opened the envelope and browsed the report. Much of it I didn’t understand.
“You understand all this stuff?” I said.
“Some of it,” Quirk said.
I read on. Quirk rose and got more coffee. When I finished reading, I put the report back in the envelope and got up and poured myself some coffee and sat back down and put my feet on the desk.
“No ID,” I said.
“Neither one,” Quirk said.
“One guy was wearing shoes made in Holland,” I said.
“That are not exported,” Quirk said.
“So maybe he’s Dutch.”
“Maybe,” Quirk said.
“Both of them are circumcised,” I said.
“So maybe they’re Jewish,” Quirk said.
“Lotta goyim are circumcised,” I said.
“Hell,” Quirk said. “I’m circumcised.”
“I’m not sure I wanted to know that,” I said.
“Irish Catholic mother,” Quirk said. “I think she was hoping they’d take the whole thing.”
I grinned.
“And both these guys got a number tattooed on their forearm.”
“Death camp tattoo,” Quirk said. “From Auschwitz. Only camp that did it.”
“But it’s the same number,” I said. “On both of them.”
“I know.”
“And,” I said, “neither one of these guys was anywhere near old enough to have been in Auschwitz.”
“Both appear to be in their thirties.”
“So they were born, like, thirty-five years after the Holocaust,” I said.
“Correct,” Quirk said.
“Maybe it’s a prison tattoo,” I said.
“A letter and five numbers?” Quirk said. “And it wasn’t crude. It was professionally done.”
“Maybe it’s not a prison tattoo,” I said.
“It’s not,” Quirk said.
We were quiet.
“How ’bout an homage,” I said.
“You mean like in memory of somebody who actually was in Auschwitz?” Quirk said.
