who had planned to screw the bank and a hooker during the same trip.
“People die the way they lived,” she commented to Detective Brewster, patting his back.
“Chief Hammer.” He was loading new film in his camera.
“I’m sorry about your husband.”
“So am I. In more ways than you’ll ever know.” She ducked under the tape.
to Brazil must have been speeding again, or perhaps he was hiding in another alleyway.
West cruised West Trade street, looking for his old BMW. She checked her mirrors,
seeing no sign of him, the scanner a staccato of more problems in the city. She picked up
the portable phone and dialed the number for Brazil’s desk at the Observer. After three
rings, it rolled over to another desk, and West hung up. She fumbled for a cigarette, and
turned onto Fifth Street, checking cars driven by men checking the late night market.
West whelped her siren and flashed her lights, messing with those up to no good. She
watched hookers and shims scatter as potential clients sped away.
“Stupid bastards,” West muttered, flicking an ash out the window.
“Is it worth dying for?” she yelled at them.
vv Cahoon lived in Myers Park on Cherokee Place, and his splendid brick mansion was
only partly lit up because its owner and his wife and youngest daughter had gone to bed.
This did not deter Hammer in the least. She was about to do a decent thing for the CEO
and great benefactor of the city. Hammer rang the doorbell, her fabric worn in places she
had not known she had. She felt an emptiness, a loneliness, that was frightening in its
intensity. She could not bear to go home and walk past places Seth had sat, lain, walked,
or rummaged through.
She did not want to see remnants of a life no more. His favorite coffee mug. The Ben &:
Jerry’s Chocolate Chip
Cookie Dough ice cream he’d never had a chance to eat. The antique sterling-silver letter opener he had given her the Christmas of 1972, still on the desk in her study.
Cahoon heard the bell from his master suite upstairs, where his view above sculpted
boxwoods and old magnolia trees included his building encrusted with jewels and topped
by a crown. He threw back fine monogrammed sheets, wondering who on earth would
dare to drop by his home at this obscene hour. Cahoon went to the Aiphone on the wall,
and picked up the receiver. He was startled to see Chief Hammer on the video monitor.
“Judy?” he said.
“I know it’s late, Sol.” She looked into the camera and spoke over the intercom.
“But I need to talk to you.”
“Is everything all right?” Alarmed, he thought of his children. He knew Rachael was in bed. But his two older sons could be anywhere.
“I’m afraid not,” Hammer told him.
Cahoon grabbed his robe from the bedpost, and flung it around himself.
His slippers patted along the endless antique Persian runner covering stairs. His index
finger danced over the burglar alarm keypad, turning off glass breakers, motion sensors,
contacts in all windows and doors, and bypassing his vault and priceless art collection,
which were in separate wings and on separate systems. He let Hammer in. Cahoon
squinted in the glare of bright lights that blazed on whenever anything more than a foot
tall moved within a six-foot radius of his house. Hammer did not look good. Cahoon
could not imagine why the chief was out so early in the morning, so soon after her
husband’s sudden death.
“Please come in,” he said, wide awake now and more gentle than usual.
“Can I get you a drink?”
She followed him into the great room, where he repaired to the bar. Hammer had been
inside Cahoon’s mansion but once, at a splendid party complete with a string quartet and
huge silver bowls filled with jumbo shrimp on ice. The CEO liked English antiques and
collected old books with beautiful leather covers and marbled pages.
“Bourbon,” Hammer decided.
That sounded good to Cahoon, who was on a regimen of no fat, no alcohol, and no fun.
He might have a double, straight up, no ice. He pulled the cork out of a bottle of