“I want my gun back, Terry. I’ve got a license for it.” I let the horse blanket drop and dug in my back pocket for my wallet. It was gummy with mud and water. I pried it open and tried separating the different bits of identification and credit cards from its sodden slots.
Finchley watched me fumble with it for a minute or two, then relented and handed me the Smith & Wesson. “I ought to get ballistics to check you against the slug Christ Hospital dug out. And then I ought to arrest you for assaulting the guy.”
“And then I’d have to have a big trial proving self-defense, and his buddies would be the only witnesses.”
“It’s tempting, Vic, very tempting. I bet the lieutenant would get me promoted on the basis of it. You be careful how you fire that thing in the future.”
“Yes, Detective,” I agreed meekly. I took the clip out and stuck it in my jeans pocket before putting the gun back in the holster. A rusty gun could misbehave in some ugly ways.
Rawlings picked up the blanket and draped it across my shoulders. I leaned gratefully into the strength of his arm on my way out the door.
The Strong Arm of the Law
I was so exhausted, it wasn’t until I had fumbled uselessly with my keys for several minutes that I realized something was wrong. “Someone’s been trying to break in, but all they did was smash up the lock.”
My lips were swollen with fatigue; the words came out in an incomprehensible mumble.‘ Rawlings took one look at the door frame and saw the damage at once. He was starting to bark commands into his lapel mike before I realized it.
I put a hand over the speaker. “Not now, Sergeant, please. I need to sleep—I just can’t face any more servants or protectors tonight. We can go around the back way, see if we can get in through there. And if not… I’ll sleep on Mr. Contreras’s couch.” Sharing my rest with Mitch Kruger’s ghost. The thought made me shudder.
Rawlings looked at me dubiously. “Let’s see what we find when we get around back,” he temporized.
My legs seemed to have come unhinged from my torso. They moved with heavy, robotlike strides, but showed a distressing tendency to buckle without warning. Rawlings, his gun in his right hand, kept an arm around me after my first collapse. When he saw how feeble I was he drove around the block to the alley.
Before going into the yard he shone a brilliant spot up and down the stairs and into all the corners. I heard
Peppy’s faint bark from behind Mr. Contreras’s door. A curtain twitched in the north corner bedroom of Vinnie’s place.
I’ve had so many work-related breakins over the years that I’ve encased my apartment in stainless steel. The front door, in addition to its treble locks, is reinforced with steel plate. The back has conventional grates on the door and windows. These were intact, but by now I was past being able to negotiate the locks. I handed my key ring to Rawlings and slumped against the window bars while he figured out the keys he needed.
All I wanted was to be left alone so I could fall into a hole of sleep. I almost screamed from exhaustion when Rawlings insisted on searching the place.
“No one’s here, Conrad. They tried the front, couldn’t do it, and decided the back was too exposed to mess with. Please… I just need to sleep.”
“Yeah, I know you do, Ms. W. But I won’t sleep myself if I don’t just make a quick run-through.”
I slumped at the kitchen table, knocking yesterday’s papers to the floor with my elbows. I dropped off at once; it took Rawlings’s lifting my head forcibly from my forearms to wake me again.
“I hate to do this to you, Vic, but unless your housekeeping’s reached new lows someone sure has been in here.”
My brain had jelled; I couldn’t even think of a response, let alone force my swollen lips to say anything. I followed him dumbly into the living room.
Someone had broken one of my north-facing windows, climbed in, and torn the place to shreds. They hadn’t been very subtle about it. Broken glass lay on the floor under the sill. One piece had migrated as far as the piano bench. The bench itself stood open. All the music lay on the floor or the piano, spines broken, sheets hanging by a single thread. Every book and paper in the room looked as though it had been similarly treated.
“I’ve got to call this in,” Rawlings said sharply.
“It’ll keep until morning,” I said as forcefully as I could. “I’m not tampering with the evidence tonight. But you’re going to have to pack me off to Elgin if I don’t get to bed. I just can’t cope with this right now.”
“But that window—”
“I’ve got a hammer and nails. There must be some boards in the basement.”
“You can’t! There might be fingerprints.”
“And then what? I’ve never known yet ”when you guys had the resources to spare to track down a residential B&E. Give me a break, Rawlings.“