“You’d have to ask Cray—this project’s got a bunch of contractors working on it. They need to know if anything special is happening on the site, and I guess you could call a dead body pretty special.”
He seemed to be smirking again, although it was kind of hard to tell in the dark. I wondered where this Cray person had been when I was calling out on the third floor. Anyway, he phoned someone at Wunsch and Grasso, maybe Ernie himself. Then Ernie buzzed his boyhood pal Furey and told him to make sure the building site was clean, that they didn’t get any adverse publicity or any liability suits. That was plausible, even likely, but it didn’t explain why Bobby had been called in and why he was ticked about it.
Unless the boys had used their connection to Boots to get county heat on the investigation? But that didn’t make any sense—they would want to keep the thing as quiet as possible, and getting Boots and the county involved would have the opposite effect. I prodded Garrison as best I could, but he didn’t know whom Cray had called or why the city had sent the head of their Violent Crimes Unit in.
“You see everything you need?” Garrison asked roughly. “I don’t want another relay coming from the cops tonight telling me they forgot one last diddle-shit question. There’s plenty of work to do here.”
“This should do it,” I said. “I think you can feel safe from the police for at least twelve hours.”
“I’d better be.” He snapped off the flash and headed back toward the hoist. “I guess I’d better tell Cray you’ve been here—he likes to know who’s on the site at night.”
We rode back to the third floor. “You’re dressed kind of funny for a cop, aren’t you?’ he said when we got off.
“I’m dressed funny for a construction site,” I corrected. “Even detectives have private lives. Cerise Ramsay’s death interrupted mine.” The memory of Bobby shining his spotlight on Robin and me popped into my head. It seemed funnier now than it had at the time. I bit back a laugh as Garrison knocked on the door to one of the little cubicles.
Cray turned out to be a heavy white man in his late fifties. He eyed me suspiciously as Garrison outlined the reason for my visit.
“You didn’t hear her when she came up here?” the security man asked.
“I was in the John,” Cray answered briefly. “You get what you need here? Next time, call ahead.”
I smiled brightly. “Next time I sure will. Who did you call—Ernie or Ron?—after Garrison told you about the body?”
Cray’s frown deepened. “Does it matter?”
“It kind of does. A dead junkie shouldn’t bring down a senior cop and I’m trying to figure out why.”
“Why not ask your boss that?” He kept a heavy, unpleasant edge to his voice.
“Lieutenant Mallory? I did ask him—he wasn’t saying. Just for the record, he’s not my boss.”
“Just a minute here.” Cray got to his feet. “Let’s see some ID from you.”
I pulled out my wallet and took out the laminated miniature of my PI license to show him.
“You’re not with the police? We went through all that for you and you’re not a cop? Goddamn you, I ought to get your ass arrested.”
I smiled at him again. “I can give you Lieutenant Mallory’s home number if you want to ask him to do it. But I never said I was with the city. I told Mr. Garrison I was a detective. He could have asked for my ID up front. I know Ernie and Ron—I can phone up tomorrow and see who you called.”
“Then do that. Get off my building. Fast. Before some one has an accident and drops a load of steel on your cute little head.”
He was breathing hard. I didn’t see any reason to be so excited, but it seemed to me that the prudent course was to vacate the premises. There are just so many dead bodies a construction site can absorb in one night.
Back in the Chevy I suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. My feet were sore; they throbbed inside my pumps. It had really been stupid to subject the poor things to so much rough terrain. I slipped out of them and drove home in my nylons. The cold accelerator pedal felt good against my hot soles.
At the apartment I resisted the temptation to ring Vinnie’s bell. Not out of any nobility of character—I wanted to sleep in and he’d be bound to retaliate in some awful way if I woke him now.
Peppy whimpered behind Mr. Contreras’s door when she heard me go by but thankfully she didn’t start barking. The old man was just deaf enough that he’d sleep through her crying, but not her barking. Upstairs I started shedding clothes as soon as I got inside. By the time I reached my bedroom I was naked. I climbed into bed and was asleep almost immediately.