Yesterday's News

if someone was willing to kill Charlie Coyne and Jane Rust, I probably weighed in as an afterthought.”
    “Oh, Mr. Cuddy, you should not sell yourself so short. Your presence in our city seems alone to be reordering all kinds of priorities. And speaking of priorities, can you tell me now why you waited so long to report the occurrence of early this morning to the police?”
    The Little Prince, who once having asked a question.... “I wanted to be sure I’d be reporting it to the right side of the department.”
    Hogueira breathed laboriously. Not aggravated, just considering things. “Perhaps I should inquire now of the name of your witness?”
    “Duckie Teevens. An employee of Bunny Gotbaum.”
    “Ah, yes. Well, it seems your first impression of the right side of the department is incorrect. This incident certainly seems within Captain Hagan’s domain. There is a bench just outside his office where you can await him in relative comfort.”

    Hagan stumped past me, favoring his right leg. “I can give you five minutes, Cuddy.”
    I stood awkwardly from the bench, thinking that I hadn’t seen him walking the day before. “Old Buick with primered fenders, right?”
    He stared at me, his hand on the doorknob to his office. “What are you talking about?”
    “Your leg. You got chased by an old Buick this morning, too?”
    “Football from high school. Acts up once in a while. You want to see me or not?”
    I followed him into the office. We sat down, and I explained what happened to me, including Duckie as witness.
    Hagan said, “Sounds to me like your witness is part of your problem.”
    “More like I’m part of somebody else’s problem.” Hagan reclined in the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Guy could have been coming off a bad night. Boss lays him off, he gets soused, maybe mistakes you for the boss.”
    “Captain, when I was in the MP’s, we had a kind of principle we lived by. Know what it was?”
    “Can’t wait to hear.”
    “We used to say that nothing happens by coincidence. Everything that seems related is related. Cause and effect, disease and symptom.”
    “What is this, Philosophy 101?”
    “No, it’s murder. Two completed, one attempted. No avenging clock-puncher this morning, either. Thoughtful, professional, and damned near successful.”
    “So you say. And so Duckie boy says. Talk to the sergeant downstairs. He can write up an incident report. That it?”
    “Yeah, that’s it. Except for one thing.”
    “Which is?”
    “How come you didn’t tell me the autopsy report showed Jane Rust was pregnant?”
    “I told you that I couldn’t see dredging up her problems once she’d decided to end them.” Hagan reached for a file on his desk. “Have a nice day, now.”

    harborside condominiums, ltd.
    experience a world of woder
    living by the sea.
    richard dykestra, developer

    That’s what the big sign said. The little sign hanging from the chain link fence was a bit more realistic: this is a hard-hat job. I pulled the Prelude past the gate and parked behind a Ford Bronco with jumbo tires and a raised suspension. There were plenty of empty spaces around it. I took another look at my book mailer. The hand-printed return address wouldn’t fool even a slow secretary, but I figured it could get me onto the job site.
    Walking back, I noticed the padlock on the gate was open. I pushed it in.
    The site was a countinghouse on an old wharf. The wharf itself, rotting timber pilings and some huge old boulders, didn’t seem the most stable foundation for a condo complex. It appeared that Dykestra was going to build his wonderland within the shell of the old countinghouse, since half the exterior filling of the structure had been demolished, leaving only the skeleton of beams and joists that one day would be polished ribs in stylish, fireplaced living rooms. If Harborside were ever finished and successfully sold.
    There was very little activity on the site. No crane and wrecking ball to punch out the unwanted parts. I could count only three guys in a far corner, one measuring, two others standing by, leaning on sledgehammers. Day labor is one thing you can’t get on credit. Nobody who needs a pay envelope every Thursday’s going to stay on the job if wages aren’t kept current.
    “Hey, you! Can’t you read the sign?”
    I looked up. A guy wearing construction clothes and a red hard hat stood on a second-floor beam with his fists on his hips like a foreman. He tossed his