Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red

held a napkin to it. The last thing I needed (or wanted) was to get blood all over my brand new tie.
    Nancy came over, looking amused. “I guess I should have put the fear of God into you, Reggie, instead of your friend. Here, have some ice.” She gave me a dishtowel wrapped around some crushed ice.
    “Thanks, Nancy.” I held it to my nose. Not that I have any false vanity or anything, but I think my nose is my nicest feature, and I didn’t much want to look like Artie’s twin.
    “Are you boys going to eat or just argue whenever you come in here?” Nancy asked.
    “Eat, we’re eating,” Reggie said. “I’ll buy.”
    “You’ll buy the next one too. This one’s on the house. But only for you , Mr. Randall!” Nancy said, tapping my shoulder with the eraser end of her pencil. “What’ll you have? Mac and cheese is on special.
    Homemade.”
    “Have that,” Reggie said with the air of a connoisseur. “Better than your mother’s, I guarantee.”
    “Okay.” I nodded and inspected the towel before holding it to my nose again. He’d never had my mother’s mac and cheese, but she was a terrible cook anyway, so it was a sure bet.
    “Two mac and cheese. And a couple of Cokes,” Reggie said, and Nancy nodded, taking off to get our orders. “Sorry about that.” His lips were twitching a bit, and I thought maybe his regrets, however sincere, were short-lived. I wondered how swollen my nose was.
    “You seem pretty sure of Jazz,” I said.
    “You said you’d lay off,” he reminded me.
    “When you got me the photos. After you tossed me out of the station, I had all day to poke around. Where are they?” He unbuttoned and reached inside his shirt, pulling out a brown envelope.

    70

    CATT FORD

    “Have to sneak them out?”
    “I made copies of the crime scene photos too,” he said. “They’re on top.”
    Nancy came trotting back with our supper, and when I smelled it, I suddenly remembered I hadn’t eaten lunch, Suzy having casually helped herself to my sandwich after she chowed down on hers.
    I dug in. It was delicious. Nancy and her diner didn’t look like much, but she sure could cook. We ate in complete silence; it was only after she’d cleared the table that I opened the envelope and took out the photos.
    I was glad I’d eaten first, because the sight of that swollen, dark face would have taken away my appetite. As it was, I had a hard time keeping it down, because even for a hardened dick it wasn’t pretty, and this was only a black-and-white shot.
    The pictures didn’t tell me much I didn’t know already, but it’s always good to get a feel for the scene of the crime. Miss Saint-Ville had dropped her wrap some distance away from where she ended up, like Reggie had said. Her bag was next to her limp hand, as if the killer had tried to get her to hold onto it after she was dead. She was sitting upright, propped against the wall, and her legs were crossed at the ankle, her skirt decorously pulled down just far enough that her garters were covered.
    “He posed her,” I said, looking up at Reggie.
    Reggie looked somber. “I’m not saying Jazz could never do anything violent. He boxes some. But he was raised by his grandmother, he respects women. This is… almost mocking the victim.
    Pulling her skirt down, like no one but me gets to see what’s under there. But leaving her face uncovered. As if he was saying she deserved it.”
    “So you think Jazz might kill in anger, but he’d regret it afterwards.” I didn’t know Jazz that well myself, but that’s kind of what I thought of him. He seemed like a proud man, one who understood what the loss of dignity meant. He would have had to hate her deeply to leave the girl there like this.

    Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
    71

    “Maybe a crime of passion,” Reggie said in a strangled voice.
    “But I don’t think….” His voice petered out, and he shook his head sorrowfully.
    “You don’t think he was passionate about her?”
    “More… confused. But what do I know?” he said roughly. “Look at the others. Publicity shots I took for Phil Martin.”
    “The cops, working for Mr. Big,” I said. I shuffled the black and whites to the back. The first photo was of Jazz Morgan, sitting at the piano, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist so his dark skin contrasted against the white cotton, revealing a necklace gleaming on his chest. It looked like a musical clef symbol.
    Reggie snatched it away from me.