82 Desire

the hell. Allred’s office was in her district, and practically on the way home. She wasn’t going to be happy unless she swung by and took a look.
    The door was unlocked. As soon as she opened it she knew by the stink there was a corpse in there.
    She stepped in and closed the door behind her, grateful for air-conditioning, yet her nose was still deeply offended. There could be no doubt this was a crime scene, but it would help, she thought, to know how many corpses were in there, and if they were human or rodent.
    The place was a wreck—papers and file folders everywhere.
    She stepped over and through a sea of strewn paper on the way to the inner office, which was likewise strewn. Glancing around, she saw that the mess came from filing cabinets in both rooms.
    Allred, if it were he, was in the second room. He had fallen backward, one hand over his head, a big hole in his chest. He was fortyish, with thinning blond hair, dressed in olive polyester—the fabled cheap suit of private-eye patter. His face was ghost-white, the blood having had plenty of time to sink to the bottom of his body. Curiously, an arm had been thrown over his head, a finger pointing. His mouth was open slightly, almost in an O, and his eyes were wide open, staring in perennial amazement. A parade of bugs marched in them.
    Rusty-looking stuff—the man’s blood—spattered the floor and his clothes.
    Okay, fine, one corpse. Human. Male.
    She knew enough to call it in, and she couldn’t justify contaminating the scene any further. She stepped into the hall, radioed the dispatcher, and waited for a district car to get there.
    That done, she was free to find a phone and call her sergeant.
    “Skip. It’s Saturday—haven’t you heard?” Abasolo’s voice had an edge. She’d probably caught him in bed with someone.
    “AA, I’ve got a corpse that has my name on it. Young lady paged me at home, told me a wild story, and showed me one of my own cards, with my pager number on it in my handwriting. Said a dude she found at the crime scene in a ski mask chased her, threatened her, then gave her my card and said to call him in the morning. And there’s one other thing. I’ve got a bad feeling the card might be the one I gave Bebe.”
    “Come on. You must give out cards all the time.”
    “Let me call Bebe—I called you first. What do you think, by the way?”
    “The guy said he was you?”
    “Implied it, anyway.”
    “I think you were right the first time. That’s a corpse with your name on it.”
    Skip found more change and gave Bebe a call. “Ms. Fortier, Skip Langdon.”
    “Oh, Skip. Call me Bebe.” She sounded nervous. “Do you have any news?”
    “I’m sorry, I don’t. But I need to check something out with you. Remember that business card I gave you?”
    “Sure. What about it?”
    “Do you still have it?”
    “I guess so. I put it in my purse.”
    “I know this sounds dumb, but do me a favor and check, will you?”
    Skip could almost see her shrugging. “Sure,” she said, and left the line.
    She was back in a moment. “It’s funny—I can’t find it. What’s this about?”
    “It may have come back to me in an odd way. Has anyone had access to your purse?”
    “Not in the house. The cleaning lady hasn’t been here. My daughter’s coming in from Wisconsin, but she isn’t here yet. Oh, wait. I left it on a counter yesterday—in a drugstore. Only for a moment, though—you know how you do when you’re shopping?”
    “Was it in your view at all times?”
    “No. In fact, I thought I heard someone in the area and I went back to retrieve it. Nothing else is missing, though.”
    “Okay. Well, it’s probably nothing. I just wanted to check it out.” She went back to the scene.
    Another officer had now arrived, and had had time to put on that disgusted look policemen get at a nasty crime scene. “Can you get over this? Right in his office—somebody probably killed the poor bastard for five bucks.”
    The coroner’s van came, and then the crime lab—Paul Gottschalk walked in full of questions. “Phew-ee, how come no one smelled him before?”
    “You couldn’t with the door closed. I know—I was first on the scene. The question is, how come nobody heard the shot? If it was a shot.”
    “Potato, probably. Look—see that spot over there—betcha anything that’s potato.”
    Some months ago, there had been an extremely well-publicized murder in which the perps had stuck a potato on a gun barrel as a