Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  One of the cops nodded. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

  The clerk ran his fingers through his hair. Parker noticed that his nails were painted pale blue.

  “What’s your name?” said Willows.

  “Pete Blattner.”

  “When’d you find the body, Pete?”

  “About half an hour ago. I dialled nine-eleven right away. We got strict rules.”

  “You touch anything?”

  “Hey, I know better’n that.”

  “Didn’t go through her pockets?”

  “If she’s broke, officer, it ain’t my fault.”

  “Has anybody else been in this room that you know about?”

  Blattner hesitated. “Well, yeah. Sure. Of course.”

  “Who?” said Parker.

  “The fella rented it. Guy who told me about the dame in the first place.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I got no idea. You want me to check the register?”

  “Is he still in the hotel?” said Parker.

  Pete Blattner jerked his thumb over his shoulder. He adjusted his suspenders. “He’s across the hall, in room three-fifteen. Soon as he found out about the body, he came right back to the desk. Real disgusted. Wanted a different room or his money back.”

  “Seems reasonable,” said the taller of the two cops leaning against the door.

  “What I figured, especially since she’s dead,” said Blattner. He got up on his toes and tried to look over Claire Parker’s shoulder at the body stretched out on the bed. Parker was too tall for him. He sank back, rocked on his heels. “She is dead, ain’t she? I mean, not just unconscious.”

  “When was the room rented?”

  “Night before last. There was a shooting in there a couple days ago. Room was sealed with crime tape ...”

  Willows nodded. Ident would seal the room and keep it that way until a blood analysis had been done.

  “Who took the room, after you removed the tape?”

  “I knew you’d ask me that, so I checked. Some guy named Smith. Mr John Smith.”

  “Was Mr Smith with anybody?”

  “No, all alone. The rate’s higher for two people. We don’t allow guests before ten in the morning or after ten at night.”

  “When did Mr Smith vacate the room?”

  “Beats me. Had to be sometime before eleven this morning. Check out time’s at eleven o’clock sharp. No loitering. Management’s got a real strict policy. You try to stay late, I got orders to use my pass key, go in and kick your ass outta there.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” said Willows.

  Blattner laughed. He spat a shred of tobacco on the floor and said, “Whoops, sorry. Don’t wanna fuck up your crime scene.”

  “What did Mr Smith look like?” said Parker.

  “I already told the other cops, the ones that came a couple of days ago, after the shooting. You hear about that?”

  “Describe him,” said Willows.

  Blattner gave him a reasonably accurate description of Randall DesMoines.

  Willows wrote it all down in his notebook. He got Blattner’s full name, his address. “We’re going to want to talk to you again,” he said.

  “Meantime, don’t leave town. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You want me, the first place you should try is probably the unemployment office. Way things have been going, I got a feeling I’m gonna get fired.”

  There was no bathroom. Willows knew there would be a communal one, at the end of the hall. It was part of the crime scene. He sent a uniformed cop down the hall to guard the door, told another cop to keep an eye on the second witness — the occupant of room three-fifteen.

  The girl was lying on her back on the bed, her legs straight out in front of her and her arms at her sides, fists clenched. Willows went over to the bed and looked down at her.

  “No purse,” said Parker.

  “How old would you say she was?”

  “Nineteen, maybe twenty.”

  “Maybe she’s lying on it. Or we’ve got ourselves a murder, and whoever killed her did it for money.”

  The girl was wearing glasses with oversized black plastic frames, a plain white blouse, pleated black skirt, black high-heeled shoes. Her legs were bare. No nylons, pantyhose or socks. Her hair was the color of a Mandarin orange, shot through with streaks of bright green. She wore no makeup, not even lipstick, but there was a small diamond on a pin stuck through her left nostril. Her skin was very pale. Except for the hair and the diamond, she could’ve worked in a bank or maybe a law office. Willows moved a little closer. He examined the clenched hands for evidence of defensive wounds, a weapon or perhaps a small bottle or vial that might have contained drugs or poison.

  Nothing.

  There was a thin gold chain around her neck, and a rectangular pendant with the name ‘Moira’ inscribed in block letters. Although it was the end of summer, there were no tan lines on her fingers to indicate she normally wore a ring. Her clothes were clean and freshly pressed. There was no visible evidence of blood or any other kind of stain.

  “She looks as if she came straight from the dry cleaners,” said the tall cop.

  The girl’s right eye was wide open. The left eye was shut. The eye that was open was dark green. The pupil was very small, a pinpoint of black.

  “Kind of unusual,” said Parker. “One eye open and the other eye shut.”

  “An open and shut case,” said the cop.

  Willows turned to him and said, “Why didn’t I send you down the hall to guard the toilet, instead of your partner?”

  “You ever see anything like that before?” Parker said.

  “Never.”

  “Winking at us. As if it was a joke. You think she might’ve been left like that on purpose?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Willows said. He glanced up as the medical examiner came into the room. The ME’s name was Bailey Rowland. He was physically nondescript but the detectives liked to call him ‘Popeye’ because of the pince-nez he wore when he was working. Popeye nodded at Willows and Parker. He approached the body, put his bag down on the floor beside the bed.

  Willows pointed at the cop with the mouth. “Can you keep a timetable?”

  The cop nodded. Willows was giving him the job of making a written record of all arrivals and departures; keeping track of who visited the crime scene, and when.

  Willows began to write a description of the victim in his notebook. He recorded her sex, approximate age, eye and hair color, a detailed description of her clothing, the fact that there was no apparent cause of death. He noted the woman’s general physique, asked Parker for an estimate of her height and weight.

  Popeye had his rectal thermometer out. He shot his cuff and studied his watch. “The photographer going to get here sometime today, is he?”

  “Any minute,” said Parker. It was the ME’s job to try to determine the apparent cause of death, and whether any observed injuries were ante or post-mortem. It was also his job to determine the approximate time of death, as indicated by body temperature, lividity, the presence of rigor mortis and various other signs. But no matter how busy he was, no exceptions, the ME couldn’t go to work until the crime scene in its original condition had been thoroughly sketched and photographed.

  Willows finished with his observations and began to draw the scene. The demands on his limited talent were not all that great. The room was rectangular. He paced it off and found it was about ten feet wide by twelve deep. There was a cold-water sink to the left of the door. The only furniture in the room was the bed and a battered oak veneer bureau. He sketched the bureau first and then the bed, complete with body.

  The corpse was so neatly laid out that it looked ridiculous, childlike in its simplicity of posture. He noted the location of the solitary window, decided it would be impossible for anyone outside to see into the room. When he was finished, he went over his notes to make sure he hadn’t missed anything the
first time around.

  Popeye was checking his watch for about the hundredth time when Mel Dutton breezed into the room. Dutton said hello to Willows, apologized for keeping Popeye waiting, smiled at Parker. Dutton was short and bald. He had reached the age where his metabolism had slowed and he was gaining weight so fast that he had to constantly replace his clothes, so that lately he’d seemed very well dressed, for a cop. Today he was wearing a pearl gray pinstripe suit, black cowboy boots with silver-tipped toes and four-inch heels. In the boots, his eyes were almost on a level with Parker’s.

  Dutton unslung his Nikon, peered down at the body through the viewfinder. “Mind moving off to the side, doc?”

  The power winder of the Nikon whirred and clicked. Dutton danced lightly around the room. “Can I pull that curtain?” he said to Parker.

  “Leave it,” said Willows.

  “The light’d be a whole lot better,” Dutton said to Parker. “Bright enough so I wouldn’t have to use the flash. Might get something interesting.”

  “Maybe later,” said Willows. Dutton was a bachelor. He had a lot of spare time and his hobby was photography. Willows had been to his apartment once. Dutton had converted the bathroom into a darkroom. He spent every spare dime he had on supplies and equipment, and had subscriptions to dozens of glossy photography magazines. He was always entering contests. Taking pictures was all he ever wanted to talk about, the only subject that could hold his interest.

  Dutton switched to his Polaroid. Waltzing around the room, contorting his body into weird shapes, crouching and stretching, he quickly shot two packs of film; one color and one black and white. As the developing film was ejected from the camera he held the shots pinched between his pudgy fingers like a deck of oversized cards. “That it?” he said when he was finished.

  “If you’re happy,” Parker said.

  “The curtain?”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “I want a pack of unexposed Polaroid film, Mel,” said Willows.

  “What for?” Confusion and then suspicion dominated Dutton’s beefy face.

  “Official police business,” said Willows, grinning.

  Dutton reluctantly gave him the film. He shuffled slowly towards the door. “I’ll send up the thirty-five mil stuff as soon as it’s ready.”

  “The sooner the better,” said Willows. His stock response.

  “Can I go to work now?” said Popeye.

  “Let’s wait for the techs,” said Willows. “I want to dust some skin, see if we can pick up any of Mr Smith’s latents.”

  “That why you want the film?”

  Willows nodded.

  Popeye looked at his watch, which was solid gold and showed the phases of the moon. Very convenient, if you happened to be a werewolf. Or just a normal human being who liked to know when to go crazy. “Quarter past one,” said Popeye. “No wonder I’m hungry. There by any chance a decent restaurant around here?”

  “The Red Hawk Cafe,” said Parker. “Halfway down the block, same side of the street. They’ve got a big neon sign hangs out over the sidewalk, you can’t miss it.”

  “Half an hour,” said Popeye. “'You need me, come and get me.”

  Willows nodded. There was something under the bed. He got down on his hands and knees. A hypodermic, plunger all the way down, barrel empty. And a spent cartridge. Small, .22 or .25 calibre. He tried to remember if Dutton had taken any shots of the underside of the bed. He was pretty sure he had — the flash would catch the casing. He noted the location in his sketch, then folded an evidence bag over his hand like an outsized mitten and picked up the hypo, used another bag to retrieve the spent shell. A .22 Long Rifle. Not a .25. So much for coincidence.

  The cop at the door noted in his timetable that the tech arrived at twenty-seven minutes past one. The tech’s name was Tim Fisher. He was about six feet tall, a hundred eighty pounds, and he was wearing a drab brown sports jacket and drab brown trousers. His heavy brown shoes had sturdy rubber heels and thick leather soles. He nodded at Willows and Parker and said, “What’ve you got, Jack?”

  Willows shrugged. “Not much. There was a hypo and a spent cartridge under the bed.”

  “Shot or shot up,” said Fisher. “Makes no difference to me, as long as she’s dead.”

  “There’s a communal bathroom down at the end of the hall,” Willows said. “We’re going to get a lot of wild prints, but ...”

  Fisher nodded. He’d been there before.

  “She didn’t rent the room,” said Willows. “A guy by the name of Smith signed the register. Could be she died somewhere else, Smith dragged her up here and dumped her. I want you to try to pick some latents off her skin.”

  “Sure,” said Fisher.

  “Mel Dutton gave me a pack of Polaroid film, if you need it.”

  Fisher shook his head. “I’ve got some Kromekote cards. Use the film to take some pictures of your wife and kids.” Willows gave Fisher a sour look, but Fisher missed it. Parker took an involuntary step towards Willows. He glanced sharply at her, his face pale, mouth drawn tight. She stood motionless. Fisher put his briefcase down on the floor and popped it open. “I better do the latents first, Jack.”

  “Whatever.”

  Kromekote cards are similar to photographic paper, but with a very high gloss. To transfer a latent print from human flesh, the card is placed on the skin where it’s assumed a latent may be located. A firm, even pressure is applied to the card for a period of roughly three seconds. The card is then lifted from the skin and dusted with ordinary black fingerprint powder. Any prints that are successfully retrieved will be a mirror image of a normal print and must be reversed in the photographer’s darkroom.

  Fisher used a total of fourteen of the five by seven inch cards. He searched for prints on the dead girl’s neck, the area directly behind her ears and ear lobes, and her wrists. Because there was a possibility the body might have been dragged or carried from a different location, he also applied cards to her heels and the skin around her ankles. He lifted her skirt. No panties. He pressed cards against the flesh of both thighs. As he finished with each card, he dusted it down and then put it into a pre-marked evidence envelope. As he dusted the last of the cards, he glanced up at Willows, shrugged.

  “Check the bedframe and windowsill,” Willows said. “We’ll let the ME go over her and then I want to take off her blouse, try the area around her upper arms and breasts.”

  “If you say so,” said Fisher without enthusiasm.

  Latent prints on living flesh maintain their integrity for a maximum of approximately ninety minutes. On a corpse, survival time depends on a number of complex factors, primarily atmospheric conditions and the state of the skin. The Kromekote lift technique was new to Fisher, and it was obvious he didn’t have much faith in it. But he’d do his job, and that was all Willows cared about.

  Willows told the cop at the door to hustle over to the Red Hawk Cafe and retrieve the medical examiner.

  There were no plastic or visible or latent prints on the bed or windowsill or bureau, none on the lightswitch or wall in the area of the lightswitch.

  The doorknob yielded a partial palm, three fingers and a thumb. Willows was fairly certain the prints were useless; that the occupant of room three-fifteen would provide a perfect match.

  Fisher went down the hall to the bathroom. He dusted the bathroom door and the doorknob and found that both were covered in fingerprints, dozens of them, layer upon layer. The bathroom was small, with a sink and toilet, no tub. Fisher dusted down the inside of the door, and then the lightswitch and wall around the switch. He went to work on the sink and taps, the surrounding wall area, then slipped on a pair of disposable rubber gloves and dusted the cracked plastic toilet seat, the water tank, flush handle. When he was finished he had hundreds of overlaps and dozens of partials, maybe a total of twenty useful prints. Because there was always a possibility that a print could be damaged during the attempt to lift it, he shot the worthwhile prints with the lab’s Polaroid
CU-5 fixed-focus camera.

  He was taking the last of the Polaroids when Willows showed up.

  “Let’s do the rest of the Kromekotes, Tim.”

  “The ME finished already?”

  Willows didn’t see much point in telling Fisher that the uniform he’d sent down to the Red Hawk Cafe had found Popeye curled up in a fetal position on the floor by his table, drenched in tears and vomit, suffering from a severe case of food-poisoning. By now he’d be in St Paul’s, getting his stomach pumped. A replacement ME was on the way but wasn’t expected for at least another hour. By the time he reached the crime scene it was probable that any latents in the area of the victim’s shoulders and breasts would have melted into her skin.

  It had been a long day. Before it was over, it was going to get a whole lot longer.

  16

  Frank was halfway into his chair when the waiter arrived at the table. Frank grabbed him by the elbow, said, “Whatcha got on tap?”

  “Miller Lite ... Labatts ...” The waiter frowned, trying to remember. “We got another one, what is it ...”

  “Gimme a Labatts,” said Frank. “A pint. What’s your bar rye?”

  “Double Crown.”

  “Make it a Seagrams.”

  “Seagrams, you got it.”

  Frank smiled, gave the arm a squeeze, let go. The waiter was all dolled up in the house uniform of a big white cowboy hat, shiny black fringed pants and a crisp white shirt. The shirtsleeve was rumpled and creased where Frank had held him, and there were dark sweat rings under his armpits. His shift had started ten minutes ago, but as he retreated towards the bar he looked as if he’d just finished a long, hard ride.

  “Jesus,” said Pat Nash, grinning. “You scared the hell out of him.”

  “Did I?”

  “See the look on his face? Like he just sat on one of Gary’s cactuses.”

  Frank rolled his shoulders, a careless shrug. In his life, he’d found that frightening people wasn’t usually a bad thing to do. He glanced across the table at Nash, who was drinking Granville Island Lager out of a longneck bottle. Frank wondered about that. He’d have thought the beer was a little upscale for Nash, and it was in the back of his mind that a bottle, because it was heavier and easier to handle, made a better weapon than a glass. Did Nash have something in mind, or was he just being careful? Frank had killed Oscar Peel, and Oscar and Nash were distantly related. Most families weren’t all that close, but some were. He leaned across the table, looked Nash straight in the eye, and said, “How you feel about Oscar?”