Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

across the street to the precinct and took the stairs at the back to the second floor, where the bomb squad was located, a bomb-shaped balloon hanging from the ceiling and pointing to their door. I knocked and went in. My friend Marty Shapiro was just hanging up his phone.
    “It’s the working girl,” he said. “Have a seat, kid. Long time no see.”
    I sat at the chair on the side of his desk, pushing away the overflowing ashtray.
    “Did it skip your notice, smoking’s not allowed in the workplace in New York for what, a couple of years now? In fact—” I said, and pointed to the Smoking Prohibited sign.
    “Hey, you expect us to go out and risk our lives on a daily basis, and you’re not going to let us have a cigarette when we come back, shaking in our boots? What next, no coffee, no doughnuts?”
    “You put it that way, I guess it would be too much to ask.” He lit a cigarette, pulled the ashtray back to where it had been.
    “What’s up, kid? You working again, another citizen thinks we can’t do our jobs, thinks the city pays us the big bucks for nothing?” He leaned back, put his hands behind his head. “I’m glad I’m out of that end of it. No problems like that with the bomb squad. None of the good people we protect think they can do this better than we can.”
    “A girl’s got to earn a living, Marty. Someone tells me her life is in danger—”
    He leaned closer. “Who’s in danger?”
    “I’ve been hired by the manager of Harbor View. She thinks—”
    ‘The old guy has an accident, suddenly everyone gets paranoid.”
    “Not everyone. Just one person.”
    “So what’s the story?”
    I shrugged. “That’s what I’d like to know. The detectives are thinking it’s an accident?”
    I waited, but old stone face didn’t respond.
    “They come up with anyone yet? Guy who allegedly caused said accident?”
    “I haven’t heard, Rach. You want I should find out for you, is that what this visit is all about, God forbid you should stop by just to say hello?”
    At least he didn’t have any control issues. Cops.
    “The Dietrich case, right?”
    “Right.”
    “What else you want to know?”
    “I was wondering—”
    The phone rang, and Marty waited, both of us hoping someone else would pick it up.
    “About the bicycle,” I continued.
    He nodded.
    “Anyone from Harbor View see it happen, someone else going home, perhaps, or coming on for the evening shift?” He shook his head.
    “Well then, who called it in?”
    “Your client, far as I know. Nine eleven has it on tape, of course, but what I recall, it was the woman who runs the place who made the call.”
    “But she wasn’t a witness?”
    He shook his head.
    “One of the inmates went bonkers.”
    “Residents, Marty. It’s not jail.”
    “You sure? Where are they going, if it isn’t jail?”
    I shrugged, wondering if someone saw it happen, or saw it after the fact, started moaning or whatever, and got Venus’s attention.
    “So if no one saw it happen, how do they know it was a bicycle?” I asked him, feeling stupid the moment I did. There had to be evidence of the fact. They wouldn’t have just made that up.
    Marty moved his chair from behind the desk, putting it right in front of mine.
    “Skid mark on the sidewalk, for starters.”
    I nodded.
    “Tread mark on the right pant leg. CSU picked up a piece of a bicycle reflector at the scene. There were a couple of slivers imbedded in the fabric of his jacket, too.”
    “I see,” I said, both of us keeping our voices low, our heads down.
    “The vie suffered a broken rib where the handlebars hit him, but he was gone before he realized what happened, knocked clear out of his shoes, poor bastard.”
    I knew it was a dumb question. There was no way to kill someone, by accident or design, without leaving some trace of the method of preference.
    At least, I hoped that was so. Because the very least you’d want in either case was to find out who, and in the latter case, make sure whoever it was didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of his crime. Without evidence, without witnesses, you couldn’t do that. You’d be left hanging, never knowing who. Or why.
    “Anyone from the outside see this happen?”
    “I’d have to look at the five to tell you that,” he said, referring to the DD5, the report the detectives had to file after ringing doorbells and taking names, hoping to find a witness in the area of the crime.
    I looked at him the way Dashiell looks at me when I’m