“Thanks.” He leans closer and drops his voice. “When she was autographing the menu, she rubbed one of her boobs against me. On purpose, Jack, I swear to God!”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to be a reporter when you grow up?”
Evan’s response is muffled by the donut he’s cramming into his cheeks. “So, you promised to tell me. What was on that CD?”
“Just music.”
“Come on, man. Who?”
“Her husband.”
What I gave young Evan for covert delivery to Cleo Rio’s apartment was the compact disc containing the first rough cut of “Cindy’s Oyster.” On the shiny face of the disc I used a red Sharpie to write a time, a date and a phone number.
“Oh wow,” says Evan. “Her dead husband’s music?”
Lunchtime. Emma’s stuck in another meeting, so I take the Mustang and light out for Beckerville. Turning the corner of Janet’s street, I feel my palms go clammy on the steering wheel. In my mind I’ve worked up this visual loop of Janet answering the door in her SWAT-team getup; tugging off her hood and smiling because it’s me at the door…
But that’s not how it goes.
Janet’s Miata is gone from the driveway, and there’s no sign of life at the house. The front door has been repaired—new locks, the works—but nobody answers when I knock and ring the buzzer. The blackout shades on the front windows have been lowered to the sills, making it impossible to peek inside. Casually I stroll to the rear of the house. In rny cheap necktie and buttoned-down shirt, I could be taken by a glancing neighbor for a city code inspector or possibly a meter reader for the electric company. Here again, my notebook serves as a nifty prop.
The back door is also locked, so I commence a minor felony. I remove two of the jalousie panes and lay them gingerly on the lawn. From my shirt pocket I take a small box cutter, lethally sharp, and slice a gash in the screen. Reaching inside, I twist the knob and lean on the door. The crime is consummated by stepping into Janet’s home, which has been tidied up though not reoccupied. Armed with the unsheathed cutter, I hurry to the living room where I intend to excise a swatch of blood-stained carpeting. This will be matched against the blood on a used tampon that I’m praying is still in the bathroom wastebasket, where I saw it two days ago when Emma and I were here.
I’m assuming the worst—that the blood on the carpet belongs to Jimmy Stoma’s sister—but it’s important to know for certain. My plan for comparing the two samples is to solicit the off-duty services of good old Pete at the Medical Examiner’s Office. He began a torrid affair with Karen, his assistant, shortly after she and I called it quits. For some reason Pete is convinced that he was the cause of our breakup. Naturally I’ve done nothing to disabuse my pathologist friend of this numbskull notion or relieve his misplaced guilt, knowing that someday I’d need a favor.
The carpeting parts like custard under the wicked blade, and I seal a wafer-sized piece in a Baggie. The tampon is retrieved and likewise secured—fortunately, whoever cleaned up Janet’s house neglected to haul out the trash. Having completed my b-and-e in less than five minutes, I exit by the back door, pausing only to reset the jalousies. I drive directly to the county morgue, where Karen greets me with that creepy formality reserved for past sex partners. Pete, on the other hand, pumps my hand, gives me a hug and says he’ll be happy to work up the blood specimens on the sly. He doesn’t even ask where they came from, that’s how eager he is to make amends.
“This is your lunch? No wonder you look so skinny.” Carla took an early break from the drugstore photo counter to meet me at the yogurt shop.
“I’ve been busy,” I tell her.
“Too busy to call?”
“It’s one thing after another with this story.”
“Ah ha!” she says. “Blackjack is getting laid again, isn’t he?”
How on earth do they know? It’s truly baffling.