Death Notes

huffed up the Hall of Justice’s front stairs, Sharon looked good - still cheap and brassy, but she looked better than I’d ever seen her. Maybe the reporters at the memorial last night had done her good. Maybe the prospect of seeing Philly Post put a twinkle in her eye. Or maybe she was just feeling like things had finally turned her way with them finding the sax - the prospect of a hundred grand could do things like that.
    Whatever it was, she seemed almost perky in her tight yellow sweater and tighter black skirt. She’d even used a lighter hand on her makeup today.
    In the elevator on the way up to Homicide, Sharon practically glowed.
    The usual bustle was on outside Philly Post’s office. He was on the phone when we stepped inside. With the receiver to his ear, he scowled at me, then motioned for us both to sit. While he listened to the voice on the other end of the line, he pawed tirelessly through the stack of folders and bureaucratic debris on his desk like he was searching for gold. We waited what seemed like thirty minutes, but was really probably three, while he wrapped up whatever was so urgent and vital over the phone.
    As usual, the room smelled like dirty gym clothes. The Pirates baseball pennant - the only personal item in the closetsized office - had lost a tack off the tip of its long end so it hung curled in a felt ringlet against the drab wall. A rumpled morning edition of The Explorer was folded open on a corner of his desk. Abby Stark’s story didn’t get the front page, but Post had found it all the same: detective works to clear musician’s death.
    Post was still on the phone but I glanced over to see if he’d noticed that I’d noticed the piece. His hard black eyes met mine. Damn.
    ‘Yeah... yeah... I got you.’
    He scribbled something down on the back of a printed form stapled to a folder, then tore the page in half and stuffed what he’d written into his breast pocket.
    ‘Yeah.Got it. What else? Yeah. Okay. I’ll check it out.’
    Loose sheets of pink and blue paper drifted off the pile of junk on his desk and settled on the scarred linoleum floor. He didn’t even bother to pick them up. The cleaning people probably had nightmares about Post’s office like I had nightmares about Post.
    When he finally hung up, he ignored me, forced a smile at Sharon, and said, ‘Thanks for coming down, Mrs Margolis. I’m glad you could make it down so fast. We found what we believe is your late husband’s saxophone last night.’
    He was being positively solicitous. I glanced over at Sharon, then back at Post, and wondered what had happened since I’d seen them both together at her house after the break-in.
    ‘Thanks, Lieutenant. You’re a real prince.’ She smiled a tight, barfy little smile, then scanned the office with her eyes. ‘Where... where is it?’
    Then she noticed Philly’s cold glare in my direction. She said, ‘You know Ronnie Ventana, don’t you?’
    ‘We’ve met.’ It sounded like an indictment.
    ‘So where’s the sax?’ I said.
    ‘Yes, please. I’ll feel better once I get a look at it.’
    Post made an odd face. ‘We’re not one hundred percent sure this is it, Mrs Margolis. That’s why we asked you to come down and ID it. It looks a little different now.’
    He muttered something about damage and engravings, cleared a spot on his cluttered desk, then reached down behind his chair.
    ‘Like I said, Mrs Margolis, we’re not one hundred percent on this.’
    He straightened and set a flattened, brass-colored mass of twisted metal in front of us.
    It took a second for it to sink in. I glanced quickly at Sharon. She looked baffled at first, then gasped and shot out of her chair.
    ‘No! I... I don’t believe it.’
    From the look of it, somebody had pounded on the sax for a long time with a big hammer. Nobody could have done that much damage with just a couple of simple whacks. The whole thing looked like it’d been stomped on, then steamrollered. A crime of passion.
    ‘The patrolman on the Riff Club’s beat found it last night, thought it looked like a saxophone. Then he remembered the murder and called me in. What do you think?’
    Sharon had blanched. ‘I don’t believe it. The museum...’ Post cocked an eyebrow at me, then turned back to Sharon. ‘Any idea who’d do something like this? Or why?’
    He was asking Sharon, not me. His eyes were trained on her like he expected her to solve the whole thing for him right then and there, but poor old