THE BLONDE WHO had been talking with the telephone men earlier came clacking out on her high heels, and when she spoke to the two men from the office the question of who called the shots in the boss’s absence was answered. The pair withdrew. Tapping her foot waiting for the cops she ignored Gregory, the corpse, and me until I lit a Winston.
“There’s no smoking,” she said.
I asked if anybody had broken it to the cars.
“The building, the basement, the grounds. It’s all a smoke-free environment.”
That ended my interest in her.
In the beginning were the uniforms: a sergeant with gray sideburns and sad friendly eyes and a female officer with nothing in her expression but the manual of arms. They went down and looked at the body, but they didn’t touch anything. It’s really amazing what fear of infection has done to the curiosity of the cop on the beat where two hundred years of department regs failed. They took notes, inspected everybody’s ID, asked a few questions, and wrote down the answers in professional shorthand. They spoke politely and if they had opinions they’d left them in their lockers. They could have given a lecture to their brothers and sisters in the big city upriver about where the job started and stopped.
In a little while a gray LeBaron pulled up to the gate and tipped out the plainclothes team. Cops always come in pairs. St. Thomas was black, medium built, and wore glasses in glittering silver frames and a charcoal three-piece suit too heavy for the weather, although he never broke a sweat all the time he was there. His companion, a chalk-faced third-grader named Redburn, had a round fat chin like a baby’s and that hungry-eyed look that came from rubbing holes in his gold shield with a cloth soaked in Brasso. He sweated enough for both of them.
Redburn went straight to the body. St. Thomas set up shop near the booth, conferring in turn with the uniforms, the blonde office manager, and then Gregory, the parking attendant. He stood close to each, spoke only in murmurs, and never called over the next candidate before dismissing the last. Then he walked down to the Porsche and stood over its driver, writing in a leather-bound notebook with a Cross pen. I think he used the Palmer Method.
When the police photographer showed up, St. Thomas spent five minutes telling him what he wanted. After the photo session he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and went over the body. His partner recorded the inventory in a dimestore spiral. St. Thomas bagged the items he found in Arsenault’s pockets, gave them to Redburn, and crooked a finger at me. I went over.
“Walker, right? What’s this about a hit-and-run?”
“Cover story, Lieutenant.”
“Sergeant.”
“You dress higher. The real story wouldn’t have gotten me past the booth.”
“Try me.”
I left out most of it, and what I gave him wasn’t true. It sounded even cheesier than it had in my head. The nut-brown eyes behind the silver frames returned nothing on my investment. When I finished he made no comment, but turned to his partner.
“So our man walked up to the car—there’s powder residue on the broken glass, and anyway a twenty-two wouldn’t have penetrated beyond a dozen feet—drilled him through the window, and walked away,” St. Thomas said. “Who opened the door?”
Redburn pouted at his notes. “The victim, probably. Reflex. Convulsions.”
“Maybe. I’ve had my car two years and I have trouble enough finding the handle in a hurry without a bullet in my head.”
“You don’t have a Porsche, Sarge.”
“Life’s a bitch. What made you so interested in Arsenault’s car?”
I played with a cigarette. I had a handle on him now. He was one of those come-back-at-you cops.
“I got a glimpse of the car the first time I was here. I wanted a look at the registration. He went from a junior partnership to company prexy in Horatio Alger time, dropped a load at an art gallery in the city on paintings for his office last year. Then there was the car. Either he was the hottest thing in architecture since mortar or he had something on old man Whiting.”
“The office manager says Whiting’s been dead a couple of years. Did you expect the car to be in his name?”
“I just wondered if they were company wheels or if he bought them out of his salary. And if his salary totaled as much as he spent.”
“Whose does? Thorough, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have a hobby.”
“It’s a nice car if you like foreign. It couldn’t shine the hubcaps on a thirty-nine Cord.”
“You a buff?” I lit the cigarette.
“I tinker. That your bomb in the visitors’ lot?”
I said it was.
“Cutlass is okay. Those old muscle jobs are mostly overrated. The Stanley topped two hundred miles per hour in eighteen ninety-eight.” He pointed his pen at the corpse. “Who do you like for that?”
“Whoever it is, he’s still in the building. Or was when I came in here.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I sat in my car for thirty minutes before I decided to take a look. I had the front of the garage in sight the whole time. I’d driven around the building and there was no other way in or out except by the elevator or the fire stairs.”
“Why the stakeout?”
“I was early.”
St. Thomas caught the eye of the office manager, who was spelling her name for one of the uniforms. She clip-clopped over.
“Everybody in today?” he asked.
“One out sick, two on vacation. The rest all reported in. If you like I’ll have a list made.” She gave him one of the smiles she’d given the telephone workers.
“That’ll help, thanks. Any visitors?”
“Yes. Yes! A messenger to see Mr. Arsenault. I didn’t talk to him, but Greta said there was something odd about him.”
“Greta?”
“Mr. Arsenault’s executive assistant. Secretary, if you want to be old-fashioned.”
“What did she find odd about this messenger?”
“It was something about his hand. He wore some kind of contraption on it, she said. A prosthetic device.”
“We’ll talk to her. Anyone else?”
“No.”
St. Thomas glanced at his watch, a plain one with a leather strap. “Slow day.”
“Well, he had one other visitor, but he’s a regular. Mr. Grayling.”
“Royce Grayling?”
She looked at me. She hadn’t forgotten the smoking incident.
“Yes. Imminent Visions has a bid in for the contract on a new downtown convention center. Mr. Grayling is employed by the City of Detroit to investigate all bids. Mr. Arsenault keeps—kept—him up to speed on the figures. They met two or three times a week.”
“How long did they meet this morning?” I asked.
“They didn’t. Mr. Arsenault left unexpectedly. Personal errand, he told Greta. He didn’t say when he’d be back. I’ve been through this.” She swept a hand through her stack of hair.
“Again, please.” St. Thomas had his notebook open, but he wasn’t writing. He might have been checking her story against the record—the number of pages he’d filled with his neat script suggested he’d already entered the uniform team’s notes into the hard drive—or he might just have wanted to be holding something. He had what might have been an old nicotine stain on the inside of his right index finger. That was a habit he’d have downloaded a long time ago.
The office manager looked at her nails, coral-painted but pruned short, for the keyboard. “Greta said Mr. Grayling arrived a few minutes after Lynn—Mr. Arsenault—left. He waited about fifteen minutes, then looked at his watch and said he’d be back later and went out. Gregory called just after that to report what had happened.”
“Did Grayling come in from the garage or through the suckers’ entrance?” I asked.
She glared at me. She had light gray eyes. “Our customers are governments and captains of industry. I’m sure he came in through the main door. The garage is reserved for personnel.”
“Yeah, a killer would respect that one.”
“Sergeant, is this man connected with your department?”
“No, ma’am, he sure isn’t.” The silver glasses turned my way. “I’ve heard of Grayling. Maybe some of the same things you have. The parking guy says nobody came through here since before eight.”
“I practically had to blow a bugle before he noticed me.”
“The security guard in the lobby will know if Grayling came in the front. We’ll check him out either way. You too. I’m not going to bother booking you since you never actually identified yourself as a police officer, but we will notify Wayne County you used a deputy’s badge to get past the booth. You might lose it.”
“That’s okay. It was spoiling the lines of all my suits anyway.”
“We’ll talk again.” His look said he hoped he’d like my next story better.
Redburn said, “Stick around town.”
I looked at St. Thomas. “Did he say that?”
“He’s new to the division. Color takes time. Remember the sentiment.”
I walked out of the garage just as the satellite van from Channel 2 rolled to a stop behind the unmarked LeBaron. A reporter I recognized from television hopped out the passenger’s side, pulling on his blazer. He tried to block my path. “Are you with the detectives’ division?”
“You’re a lot shorter in person.” I walked around him. He sprinted after me, slowing as I got to my car, and executed a snippy little turn back to the van as I climbed behind the wheel. City employees don’t drive vehicles more than two years old.
I waited for the coroner’s wagon to clear the drive, then powered on out. Just as I hit Euclid a sheet of lightning blanked the windshield. The delayed clap shook the car and the hairs on the back of my hand stood on end. Somebody always has to have the last word.