Shallow Graves

‘Give this one to Cuddy.’ “
    “Winningham wanted me to have it?“
    “Yeah.“
    “He give you a reason?“
    “He said he felt bad about all the shit we heaped on you.“
    “Winningham said ‘shit’?“
    “Uh, no. No, what he said was ‘indignities.’ “
    I pictured Winningham. Ivy League smile, razor-cut brown hair, shirt cuffs he’d shoot like a magician about to do a card trick.
    “Harry, I’m not exactly convinced that the milk of human kindness is behind all this.“
    “That’s what I said to the guy, John.“
    “What’d he say back?“
    “Winningham said... Aw, shit, he said if I couldn’t handle this, maybe I was getting a little light to be running a regional office.“
    I watched Harry Mullen chew on his cheek some more. Thought about how he backstopped me when I slid into the bottle over losing Beth, even drove or carried me home a couple of times. Thought about his wife and kids and how he’d look to another company at a job interview. Winningham was a son of a bitch, and I could see him canning Harry for this while saying it was because of other mistakes that probably had piled up since the cutbacks. On the other hand, it was possible that Winningham saw the handwriting on the wall for Empire, the preppy prince just feathering the private-sector nest he might have to fly toward himself.
    Mullen said, “John, he thinks we owe you this one.“
    “He does.“
    “His exact words. ‘Reparations, Harry. We need to effectuate reparations here.’“
    Indignities, reparations, and effectuate. Four syllables, every one. Sounded like Brad Winningham, all right.

- 2 -

    On the desk in front of Lieutenant Holt at Homicide were a multipart form and a soggy paper plate with six congealing french fries. Around forty-five, Holt wore a short-sleeve white shirt and plain wool tie. His gray hair was snipped close, his skull like a round magnet that had picked up iron filings. The chin was square and the nose long, enough lines in his forehead for terrace farming. The portrait of a man who’d had a humorectomy.
    Holt’s right hand held a stubby pencil above a box on the form. He entered two numbers in the box, then used his left hand to reach for a treat. When the hand couldn’t find the plate, his head rose. Holt pinched a fry just as he caught me standing in his doorway.
    “Lieutenant.“
    “Christ on a crutch. Cuddy.“
    “Nice to be remembered.“
    “Not when it’s me doing the remembering.“ Holt apparently forgot about his fry, still between thumb and forefinger. “The fuck do you want?“
    “Can I come in and talk about it?“
    “Tell me first. Then I decide whether you get to sit.“
    “I’m doing an outside investigation for Empire Insurance on one of their death claims.“
    “Empire?“
    “Yeah. They had the model who was killed in her apartment.“
    “Danu...?“
    Holt seemed to suffer a brain cramp.
    “Lieutenant, I think it was ‘Dani.’ Mau Tim Dani.“ I pronounced it the way Harry Mullen had.
    Holt stopped for a minute, face unreadable. Then he dropped the fry and said, “Sure, Cuddy. Sure, I can spare a minute for that.“
    I took it I could come in and sit down. Holt used the time to tip back in his chair and fold his hands over his stomach. They had to stretch some to do it.
    He said, “So what did Empire tell you?“
    “Not much. She got strangled, apparently by a burglar, but the modeling agency that had the policy on her seems kind of quick on the trigger.“
    “And you’d like to see our jacket on it, right?“
    “Right.“
    Holt stopped again, just short of smiling at me.
    “Lieutenant?“
    “I was thinking about last year, with that Marsh guy and the hooker at the Barry.“
    “You know I wasn’t involved in that.“
    “How about what happened afterwards?“
    “I was in jail, remember?“
    “I remember a lot of things, Cuddy. And like I said, it’s not so good for a guy in your line of work to have me remembering. But you’ve got to make a living, too, right?“ ,
    I wasn’t following the way this was going. “So I can see the jacket?“
    “Seems to me last time I showed you a little cooperation, it blew up in my fucking face.“
    I didn’t need this. Then I thought about Mullen and his family and how much my old chief investigator needed my old job. “Lieutenant, all I’m asking for is a little help here.“
    “A little help? A little help, that I can give you.“
    Holt stood and crossed to a file cabinet, yanking one, then