guard this afternoon might be a good time to summon together the great minds of the 87th Squad. Coffee and donuts were de rigueur, paid for from the squad's slush fund, and arranged on top of the long bookcase on one wall of the lieutenant's corner office.
The team being relieved was Meyer, Kling, and Carella; Hawes would have been there, too, but he was in the hospital, still fuming. The relieving team was Willis, Parker, Genero, and Brown. Andy Parker, relieving five minutes late, was nonetheless the first to pour himself a
cup of coffee and heap three donuts onto his paper plate. 'So what've we got here?' Byrnes asked. 'A nut?' He sounded annoyed. White-haired and blue-eyed, the map of Ireland all over his craggy phizz, he sat behind his desk in his corner-windowed office, glaring out at his men as though challenging them to tell him this nut was as sane as any of them.
'Beginning to ramble a bit, right,' Meyer agreed, and
rolled his eyes.
'Whose mom is he referring to?' Parker asked. Naturally, his interest would have been drawn to mention of a porn diet and a tit, any tit. He had not shaved this morning. Upon awakening, he'd told himself he would shave this afternoon, before coming in. But it was now a little past four P.M., and he still hadn't shaved, and he wouldn't be relieved until midnight, so he probably wouldn't shave at all today. But such were the vagaries of police work; one never knew when he might be called upon to impersonate some kind of shabby street person.
'Who cares whose mom?' Meyer said. 'Mom's tit is where he starts to lose it.' 'And us,' Carella added.
'When were you not lost?' Byrnes wanted to know. 'Well, at first we thought he was referring to the homicide we caught yesterday morning. In his first
note . . .'
'Let me see that again,' Byrnes said, and extended his hand across his desk. Carella gave him the note in its plastic shield:
WHO'S IT, ETC?
A DARN SOFT GIRL?
O, THERE'S A HOT HINT!
And this arrived when?' Byrnes asked.
Around this time yesterday afternoon.'
'So you figured the 'darn soft girl' was . . . what was the vic's name again?'
'Gloria Stanford. Yes.'
And that was the perp's hot hint, is that what you figured? That Gloria Stanford was the darn soft girl?'
'Yes. Well. . . yes.'
'Some hint,' Parker remarked.
'He spelled oh wrong,' Genero said, sure of it now. He'd looked it up in the dictionary last night. At five feet nine inches tall, Genero thought he was very tall. From his father, he had inherited beautiful curly black hair, a strong Neapolitan nose, a sensuous mouth, and soulful brown eyes. From his mother, he had inherited the tall Milanese carriage of all his male cousins and uncles — except for his Uncle Dominick, who was only five-six.
'Tell me something,' Byrnes said. 'Doesn't the perp realize we know this girl's name? I mean, he left her in her own apartment, he didn't dump her in the park someplace without any ID on her, he's got to realize we already know who she is. Isn't that so?'
'It would appear to be so, yes, sir,' Carella said.
Byrnes looked at him. He was not used to being sirred by his detectives.
'So why is he asking us who she is? And why is he telling us there's a hint in his note? Where's the hint? Do any of you see a hint? Hot or otherwise?'
'Am I the only one eating here?' Parker asked.
'I can use some coffee,' Brown said.
He appeared to be scowling, but that was merely his normal expression. A big man . . . well, a huge man . . . with eyes and skin the color of his name,
Arthur Brown was the sort of detective who reveled in playing Bad Cop because it fulfilled the stereotypical expectations of so many white people. He particularly enjoyed being partnered with Bert Kling, whose blond hair and healthy cornfed looks made him the perfect Good Cop honkie foil. Going to the bookcase feast now, eating a donut in three bites before he poured himself a cup of coffee and put two more donuts on a paper plate, Brown said, 'Could we see that second note, please?'
Carella passed it around:
A WET CORPUS? CORN, ETC?
'He's telling us we've got a bleeding corpse here,' Brown said.
'Just what I thought,' Meyer said.
'Then why the question marks?' Genero asked.
'He's saying 'Get it?'' Kling said. 'Wake up here! I'm spelling it all out for you, dummies.'
'Pay attention here!'
'Listen to me.'
'HarkV
They all turned to look at Willis.
'Is actually what he's saying,' Willis said, and shrugged. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he was the shortest man on the squad, but he was a black belt in karate, and he was ready to knock any one of his colleagues flat on his ass in ten seconds flat if they questioned his use of a perfectly legitimate synonym for 'listen carefully.'
'The third note is where he begins to lose it,' Meyer said. 'In my opinion, anyway.'
'Could we see it again?' Kling asked.
Carella placed it on Byrnes's desk. They crowded around it, munching donuts.
BRASS HUNT? CELLAR?
'Was there any top brass at the scene?' Byrnes asked.
'Not a big enough case to draw their attention,' Carella said.
'So what's this about a 'brass hunt?' '
'I figured he might be referring to spent cartridge cases.'
'Did Mobile find any?'
'No, but
'What'd Ballistics say the weapon was?'
'A forty-five automatic'
'So there wouldn't have been any.'
'So what does 'brass hunt' mean?'
'And why's he sending us to the cellar?'
'Which, by the way,' Meyer said, 'Mobile went down there this afternoon and found zilch.'
'Down where?' Genero asked.
'The basement of the building,' Carella said. 'Where the girl was killed.'
'She was killed in the basement?'
'No, in her bedroom. I meant the building where she was killed.'
Genero looked bewildered.
'The last note is where he loses it entirely,' Meyer said. 'In my opinion, anyway.'
'Let's have a look,' Byrnes said.
PORN DIET? HELL, A TIT ON MOM!
'Maybe he's referring to the girl again,' Genero said.
'Did he shoot her in the breast?'
'Not according to the ME's report. She was shot twice. Both slugs took her in the heart. Just below the left breast.'
'Was she sexually assaulted?'
'No.'
'Then what's this 'porn diet' shit?' Parker asked.
'What's any of it?' Genero asked.
'Who's this Adam Fen?' Byrnes asked.
