The Death Of Blue Mountain Cat Part 23

"Will Manny make it?"

"Past Christmas?"

Rick nodded.

"I doubt it. But then, I wouldn't have bet he'd last as long as this."

Forty-Eight.

At the morgue, there was a different kind of show-up-only one subject, one who wouldn't turn to offer his profile for identification. And a fearful witness-fearful for what she'd see, not for who would see her. Thinnes had been in the room a hundred times, and it was still unnerving.

He'd called Wisconsin and asked them to break the news to Redbird's sister and make arrangements for her to come to Chicago to ID the body officially. He'd picked her up at O'Hare. Now, in Room 131, he stood with her in front of the window into the cooler, the cold room where the dead awaited their ultimate disposition. The a.s.sistant medical examiner pulled the curtain, and they could see the gurney through the viewing window, with its shrouded burden.

She was dry-eyed, a lifetime older than the young woman in the photos. As she stood at the window, without fidgeting, and waited for the man on the other side of the gla.s.s to pull back the cover and make her brother's death real, Thinnes could sympathize with her lack of hurry.

Then the man lifted the cover, and Thomas Redbird's sister nodded and turned away. "That's him."

Thinnes signaled, and the AME re-covered the body and pulled the curtain closed. Thinnes opened the door into the next room and waved her in. Room 133. Gray-and-black furniture, built to withstand the onslaught of distraught humans; reddish carpet and orange door; tan walls and ivory curtains; and, near the ceiling, the preferred medium for introducing people to the hard facts-closed-circuit TV.

At his request, she sat on the sofa. He thought she fit the stereotype-the stoic red man. Or, in this case, woman. "Do you have a place to stay?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry to have to ask you questions at a time like this, but I need help finding those responsible." She nodded. "When was the last time you saw him alive?"

"The morning after Thanksgiving. He came for dinner and left after breakfast the next morning."

"Did he have any enemies?"

"No."

"Anyone hate him enough to kill him?"

"No."

"Can you think of anything that would help me?"

"I know why he was killed." He waited. "He knew who killed the artist. Bisti."

"Who?"

"He wouldn't tell me. He knew, though."

"Did he know Bisti?"

"He knew Mrs. Bisti. He loved her. He wanted to marry her-before she met Bisti. But she didn't love him. So she married Bisti. I told him, go to the police."

"Was he afraid?"

"My brother was never afraid. But he should have gone to the police."

Forty-Nine.

"Hey, Thinnes. Looks like we got a line on your dog." Viernes slapped a note sheet down on the table in front of Thinnes. "Beat copper-Noir-ran him down for you."

"Dog?"

"Yeah, you know. The one that took a dump on your crime scene."

"Oh." Thinnes picked up the paper and read a name, Abner West. Address in Uptown. The address was familiar: an SRO-single room occupancy-hotel, an odd one in that its former suites had been converted to one-bedroom apartments. "Noir still on duty?"

"Should be."

"Do me a favor?" Thinnes waved the paper. "Call over to Twenty and ask them to have him meet me."

Gray and dismal even in summer, Uptown was h.e.l.l in December. Thinnes parked; before he and Oster could get out of the car, Officer Noir and his partner pulled up with their Mars lights flashing.

Thinnes got out and walked over to the patrol car. "Noir?"

"Yup."

"Kill the lights, would you please?

"Sure."

"You guys with us?" Oster asked.

Noir gave them a thumbs-up and got out of the car, closely followed by his partner. Young and blond and fit, Noir could have been a poster boy for the Hitler Youth. He was pressed and polished, clean-cut and clean shaven. And macho. His partner was dark, taller, heavier, and laid-back enough to seem half-asleep by comparison. He wasn't. He gave Thinnes a succinct account of their discovery of the dog's owner-from memory. Thinnes was impressed. An "attaboy" was in order, he decided, maybe a good word to the team's supervisor.

The man who opened the office door looked like a h.e.l.l's Angel, from long, greasy hair tied back with a bandanna to chain-clad motorcycle boots. Dirty sleeves from his thermal undershirt showed below the rolled sleeves of a plaid work shirt, and his jeans were held by both suspenders and a belt with a Harley Davidson buckle.

"We're looking for an Abner West," Oster told him.

"Yeah. Well, like I told the beat cop earlier..." He focused on something behind Oster-spotted Noir, Thinnes guessed. He seemed to calculate briefly whether Noir would consider it an insult to be called "cop" by a civilian. Thinnes could almost see the wheels turning and the internal shrug as the man decided he didn't care. He brought his full attention back to Oster. "I ain't seen him in a couple days."

"That unusual?"

"Well...He's a boozer. You know how they are sometimes."

"Tell us about him," Thinnes said.

"Not much to tell. Lives alone-no family he's ever mentioned 'cept a nephew that's a b.u.m. Served in Korea. Pays his rent pretty regular."

"What does he do for a living?"

"Ya got me. Some kinda pension, maybe?"

Oster said, "What's the nephew's name?"

"Elvis Hale."

"What kind of b.u.m is he?"

"The kind that's got a prison record."

"Know where we can find him?"

The manager shook his head.

"Tell us about West's dog. What kind is it?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know. Yellow."

"Big?"

"It will be when it gets done growing."

"How long has he had it?"

"'Bout two months. Not sure. It's quiet. No tellin' how long he had it 'fore I found out."

"Why'd you let him keep it?"

"Like I said, it's quiet. And he cleans up after it."

They waited. Nothing he'd said so far explained why a landlord would let a tenant keep a dog.

Finally he said, "Well. He gave me two months rent up front for security."

They kept waiting.

"To be honest, I figured if he had some company, he wouldn't be pestering me all the time. He gets lonely and gets tanked up, then he comes down here wantin' to talk-a real pain in the a.s.s."

There was no answer when they knocked on West's door, and the woman in the next apartment was worried. She hadn't seen him in two days, though he usually came and went walking the dog.

It was obvious, as soon as Thinnes opened the door, that their concern was justified. Blood was everywhere. Dark, clotted blood. Half-dried. Still smelling like death. The dirty, scarred linoleum was splattered with it as if someone had taken a bucket and splashed it from the center of the room to the doorway on the far side. And then padded through it barefoot. And slipped on one of the splotches and gone down on hands and knees, squeegeeing the blood aside, leaving scrabbled handprints on the filthy floor.

Right behind Thinnes, Noir said, "Christ!"

Thinnes said, "Stay here."

Noir stopped in the doorway. Thinnes pulled latex gloves from a pocket and put them on before stepping carefully across the room. The overhead light reflected dully off the clots that hadn't dried. It was hard to find places, as he reached the far doorway, to put his feet without stepping in it. The short hallway beyond the doorway was dark, and Thinnes stopped before entering it. "Noir, throw me your flashlight."

Noir, who'd drawn his gun, complied.

Thinnes hugged the left side as he continued, holding the light well away from his body and trained on the b.l.o.o.d.y handprints along the right wall. He didn't really fear an attack. The blood was old, the killer likely gone. But Thinnes advanced cautiously.

The trail led to the end of the hall, a bedroom if the layout was the same as the neighbor's, back out into the hall, and through a doorway in the right wall of the hallway-what had to be the bathroom. The door was closed. Thinnes picked his way through the bloodstains, stepping carefully on dried patches where there wasn't enough blood-free s.p.a.ce for his feet. The flashlight beam found dried blood on both jamb and doork.n.o.b. And b.l.o.o.d.y daubings along the door's edge. Thinnes turned the k.n.o.b and pushed. There was momentary resistance. Then a grotesque, familiar smell. The smell of death-feces and a body left lying in the steam heat. How many days?

The resistance was from weight, not power-something heavy leaning on the door. Thinnes shoved the flashlight in his belt and leaned backward so he could look for an attacker through the crack between the jamb and the hinge side of the door. He saw only a dirty bathtub and an old steam radiator. He pushed the door open wider. The white tile floor of the room was dark with blood, blood following the grout lines, outlining the small hexagonal tiles. He peered cautiously around the door.

The room was about five by eight, with sink and toilet on the right, tub opposite the door, and radiator opposite the toilet. The body of a Caucasian male, mid-sixties, 250 pounds, lay on its left side, facing the toilet with its arms bracketing the s.p.a.ce occupied by the fixture and its feet against the door. Worshipping the porcelain G.o.d even in death. The body was clad only in a sleeveless undershirt and boxer shorts.

Without entering the room, Thinnes looked closely at the remains. Abner West's face, hands and feet, forearms and knees were covered in dried blood. And blood matted his thinning white hair. His half-mast eyes were darkened by the dry air, as were his lips and the numerous small sc.r.a.pes and scratches on his flabby legs and torso. His skin looked jaundiced under a fluorescent light yellowed by years of cigarette smoke. The purple blotches of livor mortis darkened the lowest-lying body parts, except on the feet, which had been moved when Thinnes shoved the door. West's flaccid limbs and the greenish tinge of his distended abdomen told Thinnes that rigor had come and gone and putrefaction was settling in.

There was a spent cigarette b.u.t.t dissolving in the toilet-lid and seat were up-and black crud growing under the rim. Yellow drip stains decorated the outside of the bowl, trailing to a crust of filth around the base. Not a foot from Abner West's dead face. Apart from the blood, there was no sign of a struggle. Thinnes looked everything over twice to be sure. Then he backed out of the room and let the weight of West's feet against the door push it shut.

The room at the end of the hall was dark. Thinnes shone the flashlight around and was momentarily startled when a pair of red eyes flashed back at him. Then he remembered West had a dog. He found the light switch and flipped it. Light changed the red eyes dark brown and the darkness around the eyes to almost white. The dog looked like a Labrador retriever that had been bleached almost white. A red nylon collar around its neck and a red nylon leash tied to the leg of the bed kept it from crossing the room to greet Thinnes. There was a large damp spot on the faded rug at what looked like the maximum distance the dog could get from the bed. The dog wagged its tail, timidly at first, as if expecting to be punished, then more enthusiastically.

Thinnes looked around the room. At first glance, it appeared to have been tossed by the DEA-clothes and old newspapers and empty booze bottles were strewn everywhere. But the drawers were still in the dresser, and the closet door was shut. And nothing in the room was broken. Abner West had simply been a slob. The only neat thing in the room was the dog. And even the dog was splashed with the blood that trailed into the room and back out again.

Thinnes returned to the front room.

Oster was standing just inside the front door, looking around. "Not much of a housekeeper, is he?"

"Was," Thinnes said. "Looks like natural causes, but in case I'm wrong, let's get a mobil unit in here to take a few pictures. And call the ME-see if they want to send an investigator-the usual drill."

Thinnes spent the next twenty-five minutes talking to the neighbors up and down the hall, learning nothing helpful. When the district evidence guy showed up, Thinnes told him, "Victim's not in any hurry. Go take pictures of his dog, first, so we can get it out of here. End of the hall."

The photographer took pictures of the hall, itself, before he picked his way down it, through the blood. From just inside the bedroom door, he shot pictures of the floor and three walls, then crossed to the opposite side of the room to shoot the door wall. He took two close-ups of the b.l.o.o.d.y dog, one from each side. The dog sat quietly and wagged its tail.

"What've we got here, Detective?" the tech asked.

"In spite of the blood, I think we got natural causes," Thinnes said. "Guy was a boozer. Looks to me like it finally caught up with him."

The technician nodded. "Where is he?"

"In the bathroom. Let me get rid of this dog before you shoot in there."

Thinnes crossed to the bed and untied the dog, then carried it out of the apartment, trying to hold it away from his body to keep from getting blood or hair on his clothes. The animal was heavy-twenty-five or thirty pounds-and he was glad to set it down in the hall.

The two beat coppers, lounging against the wall opposite the door, came to attention when he appeared.