Night and Day Read Online Free PDF Page A

off-limits to civilians,” the lieutenant said before I could open my
mouth. The tag on his uniform said “Iverson”.
    “I understand that . . . ”
    “Then why are you still standing here?” Iverson interrupted. “You’re wasting my time.
Move along, or you go through that tape with handcuffs on your wrists.”
    It didn’t look like Lt. Iverson was any more interested in what I had to say than the
patrolman. It was time to try something else. Something I’d never tried before.
    A couple of months after Joshua and I started working together, he’d asked me stay in the
office until he got there, after sundown. He’d sat down on the other side of my desk and put a
small blue oval disk between us. Etched on the disk was the image of a bird of prey,
maybe a falcon.
    The thought of wearing a pendant wasn’t an attractive one, but I was the junior partner, so I
could either go along or quit. But that wasn’t what it was for.
    Joshua told me that if I ever got in trouble with a Vee, flashing the disk might get me out of
the jam, or at least keep me alive until he could get there. He hadn’t mentioned trouble with
humans, but it was worth a shot.
    I pulled out my wallet and grabbed the disk from behind my driver’s license. “This mean
anything to you, Lieutenant?” I asked.
    Iverson’s eyes flickered. “Interesting,” he said. “Don’t see many of those.”
    “I bet.”
    “You have ID to go along with that, right?”
    I took out my private investigator license and held it up. It wasn’t what he was expecting. “I mean . . . ” He paused. “You know, official ID.”
    “That’s what I have.”
    I had no idea what kind of ID he was expecting me to flash. I didn’t even know what the
disk meant. It was a start, but it didn’t look like it was going to close the deal. Iverson was
expecting more. I didn’t have more. So he had to make a decision.
    “Look, Mr. . . . Welles,” he said, glancing at my license card. “We’ve got a very difficult
situation up here . . .”
    “I know,” I replied. “My business at the station isn’t connected with that.”
    “You know?”
    “I have contacts with Downtown District.”
    Iverson was silent as he digested what I’d said. I could almost see the gears turning in his
head. Contacts with Downtown District could mean almost anything. Maybe my brother-in-law
was a patrol cop. Or maybe I played poker with the District Commander every night.
    He was reaching for his radio, probably to call it in and dump it on somebody with more
pips on his collar. I didn’t have the time or the desire to be passed up the chain-of-command.
MaryAnn Klinger had a date with the incinerator.
    Iverson knew what the disk meant, and his response was to pass the buck to somebody else.
It was time to try something different.
    He was in his early forties, about the right age. I moved close to him. “Look, Lieutenant,” I
said softly. “You have any kids?”
    His eyes opened wide, and he took a step back. It was a strange reaction. Almost like
the disk made him think my question was a threat. “Yeah,” he said after a
moment. “Two sons. Why?”
    “Because somebody else’s kid is lying on a slab in the station morgue. Girl named
MaryAnn Klinger. Your men pulled her out of a dumpster yesterday morning.”
    Iverson nodded. “I saw the report. She’d been...”
    “That’s the one,” I said. “The girl’s mother hired me to find her daughter.” I paused. “I
can’t bring MaryAnn back to her alive, but I can sure as hell bring her back. As long as
somebody doesn’t toss her corpse into the incinerator.”
    Before he could say anything, I continued, “If it was one of your sons, you’d want somebody
to bring him home, wouldn’t you? So you could do the right thing, see he got a proper burial.
You wouldn’t want him tossed into the incinerator like so much trash, right?”
    “I can put a hold on the body,” Iverson said slowly. “Tomorrow morning you can come
back