'Why do you need a photo?' Kom asked.
'For identification,' Becker said. 'We can't ask people to come look at a dismembered corpse and expect them to make a sensible response. They'd be too horrified, they wouldn't be able to look at it. If we can get a decent photo we use that, otherwise we'll have an artist give a rendering of what she probably looked like when alive.'
Kom studied the body again for a moment. 'I wonder what she did look like. Pretty, do you think?'
'Her parents thought so,' Becker said.
Later, as they left Grone's domain, Kom said, 'Doesn't it bother you, John? How can you look at bodies like that without letting it get to you?'
'It bothers me.'
'I would never know it from looking at you.'
Becker grinned ironically. 'Stanley, there are a great many things you'd never know from looking at me. I have my little secrets. One of them is that I don't like looking at corpses with their limbs hacked off. I do it because it's useful and I've learned to do it without losing my lunch, but I don't like it.'
'I didn't mean to imply that you liked it.'
'I noticed that you managed to look.'
'I'm a doctor.'
'You don't doctor corpses, do you? You took a good look, you showed a real interest.'
'I've offended you, John. I'm sorry.'
'My reactions to things are pretty normal, Stanley, despite what you've heard. Putrid flesh makes me want to vomit. Mutilations make me wince.
Sharp instruments cut me. I sound like Shylock, don't I? Hath not a cop tears?'
'I was trying to offer sympathy, really,' Kom said. 'I certainly wasn't criticizing. I admire you, I admire your work, I… I marvel at how you do it.'
'Okay, Stanley. Sorry. It's a sore spot.'
'I certainly didn't mean..
'No way for you to know. It's all right. Really.'
'I hope you're not mad at me. I was insensitive, I see that. I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world, John. I want very much to stay your friend.'
'It's okay. I oveffeacted.'
'No, it was foolish, it was stupid, I'm so sorry, John…' Kom took hold of Becker's arm. 'It's okay, Stanley,' Becker said, pulling free.
'Just leave it alone, for Christ's sake.'
Kom could not resist one last apology. 'I'm sorry,' he said, his voice sounding close to tears. Becker forced himself to look at Kom, the man's face filled with remorse and bewilderment, only partially aware of what he had done to incur Becker's displeasure. He just wants to be my friend, Becker thought. He just wants me to like him. Kom's eyes were wide and watery, his smile trembled hopefully on his lips. Becker fought a strong impulse to put his hand on Kom's troubled face and push hard.
'The girl is-was-Inge Schrag,' Tee said, tapping the artist's rendering on the desk in front of him. 'She was an all pair for the Hills. They reported her missing five days ago and this morning they identified her from the photo. We'll send the girl's fingerprints back to Germany for verification, but the Hills don't have any doubts about it.'
'What do you know about the Hills?'
Tee chuckled mirthiessly. 'Only what McNeil tells me. I sent him to check out the missing person report. He didn't take it seriously, thought there was nothing to it. As we might expect.'
'I'll talk to the Hills.'
'Fine, I plan to talk to them too. I also intend to ask McNeil where he was the night the girl disappeared. He wasn't on duty, I know that much.'
'You're going to make him an official suspect?'
'Official, unofficial. John, you know I told you I'd been in his garage and found the knife that could have done it… Are we off the record?'
'If you like.'
'Are we just two friends talking now?'
' Okay. '
'Well, I went back and got my fingerprints off the knife.'
'And his, too.'
'If there were any on there in the first place. You should see how clean he keeps those things.'
Becker waited.
'I know I shouldn't have done that,' Tee said, hoping Becker would contradict him. He gave Becker time enough to speak, and then continued. 'But this case isn't going to come down to finding McNeil's fingerprints on his own knife in his own garage, is it?':, Not anymore,' Becker said.
'Thanks for your support.'
'I can't tell you that you did the right thing, if that's what you're waiting for.'
'I know.'
'The right thing was to wear gloves when you went in there the first time.'
'Well, I wore gloves this time. And I found something else… a golf trophy, very expensive blown-glass kind of thing, Steuben glass, I think.'
'McNeil doesn't strike me as a golfer.'
'It wasn't McNeil's. It had the name of the owner right on it. It belongs to Paul Hill.'
'The same Hill?'
'The same. I asked him about it. He hadn't realized it was missing until I asked. Which means McNeil was in Hill's house sometime. My guess is the same night he took Inge.'
'You think McNeil is burgling houses as well as killing young women?'
'I think this was what Kiwasee called to tell me about.'
'But you didn't see it the first time you searched the garage? You said you did a thorough search, right?'
Tee shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'I missed it the first time. Or maybe it wasn't there and McNeil shifted it later, I don't know. It was there this time.'
Becker looked out the window of the police headquarters. The station shared a parking lot with the town hall and the town library. He watched a clot of little children and their parents emerge from the weekly story hour in the library. 'I don't know McNeil well,' Becker said slowly. 'I don't like him, he's feisty and defensive and generally oh structive. I make him to be the kind of guy who's envious of anybody he thinks is ahead of him in life and meanspirited about it.
Probably a bully, too. But I don't get the impression that the man is a moron.'
'I didn't say he was a moron.'
'He would have to be to kidnap a girl and at the same time swipe an expensive trophy that can't be worth much to anybody except the guy whose name is on it. What's he going to do, sell it? Do you want a trophy with the name Paul Hill on it? Nicklaus or Palmer, maybe, but not Paul Hill, amateur golfer. So then what? He'll keep it? Put it on his mantel so he can daydream about what a great golfer he isn't? Who could he show it to? I know-how about steal it, a one-of-a-kind item that can be traced immediately, and hide it in his garage? That way if anybody finds it they can link him to the Hill house right away. An especially good idea if he's just killed a girl who lived there. I'd call that moronic, wouldn't you?'
'The trophy is there, I saw it.'
'But who put it there? Why didn't you see it the first time?'
'It was hidden.'
'How well?' Tee hesitated. 'Not very well.'
'How did Kiwasee know it was there? What was Kiwasee doing so close to McNeil's house the night he got killed? Why did Kiwasee drop the dime on McNeil in the first place?'
'You're telling me Kiwasee planted this trophy in McNeil's garage?'
