Fatal Reaction

height.
    “How’s that?” I asked, having never really considered Stephen on the hook in the first place.
    “I think we can rule him out just on the basis of size. How tall was Danny?”
    “Average. I’d guess five foot ten or eleven, a hundred and seventy pounds.”
    “So that would put his shoes somewhere between a size eight and ten. We’ll check his closet to be sure. But see here, the waffled print that looks like it was made by an athletic shoe? This one’s definitely smaller and narrower than the others. Now, I don’t know what size shoe your boyfriend Stephen wears, but how tall is he? Six two, six three?”
    “He’s six foot five,” I replied, much amused. Elliott, who made his living on his faculty for observation, knew very well how tall Stephen was.
    “Well, it’s a good bet that his gunboats make a much bigger print than that,” replied Stephen, indicating the clear tread of a pair of athletic shoes.
    “How can you be sure that whoever made the second set of footprints was in the apartment at the same time as Danny? Isn’t there a chance he came in after it was all over?” I demanded.
    “Joe says he and Wypiszinski had the crime lab check and they found several places where Danny’s footprints were superimposed on the running shoes’. I’ll have an independent forensics lab send a team through here and I’ll make sure they send a footprint expert.”
    “So what we have to do, a la Sherlock Holmes or Cinderella, is find the person who matches the footprint. Even if he didn’t kill Danny, it’s a sure bet he knows how he died.”
    “Yeah. He was there,” replied Elliott. “When I talked to Joe yesterday he said that every bought politician in the state has been on the phone to the ME’s office about getting the autopsy done. He expects to hear from the ME any day now.”
    “The autopsy’s been done already,” I replied. “I didn’t call you because I assumed you’d have heard it from Blades.”
    “What do you mean it’s already been done?” Elliott demanded. “When?”
    “Sometime late yesterday afternoon.”
    “I talked to Joe this morning before I went to your Place. He didn’t say a word about it.”
    “Oh, there’s more,” I continued and proceeded to tell him about Stephen’s and my unscheduled visitation of fanny’s body.
    “Now I know why you stick with the guy. It’s not that he’s good-looking, or rich, or successful. No, it’s because he really knows how to show a girl a good time,” quipped Elliott humorlessly. “I can also assure you that Joe’s going to be real pissed about the autopsy.”
    “Why is that?”
    “The detectives assigned to the case are supposed to get three hours’ notice from the medical examiner so that they can be present for the autopsy. This thing with Sarrek has got the whole system tied into knots. So what does the ME say killed him?”
    “I don’t think they know,” I replied, shuddering inwardly at the thought of Danny. “Everything Joe said was true, though. There was no blood left in his body and there wasn’t a mark on him.”
    “What does your friend Stephen think? After all, he’s a doctor.”
    “Even when he was still seeing patients I think he knew a lot more about the living,” I pointed out. “I don’t think he knows what to think.”
    Elliott sighed and began walking slowly around the apartment as if trying to look at it again in light of this new information. He picked up a photograph in a brushed chrome frame from a side table.
    “Is this him?” he asked. I came over and took a look. It was an arty black-and-white shot of Danny looking soulful. Droplets of blood had dried dark brown on the surface of the glass.
    “Yes, that’s him.”
    “Is it a good likeness?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good,” said Elliott. He carefully removed the picture from its frame and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned to me and gestured at the paintings and photographs that hung on the walls. “These are what he collected?”
    “Yes. I don’t understand it, but supposedly Danny not only had a passion for contemporary art, but a good eye.”
    “Which don’t you understand?” inquired Elliott, squinting at a canvas covered thickly with murky acrylics into which the artist had stuck pieces of broken glass and hair, apparently at random. “The paintings or the passion?”
    “Neither,” I replied.
    “What would you say all of this was worth?”
    “I have no idea,” I replied.
    “Joe says it’s