Night and Day Read Online Free PDF

and do whatever you have to do.”
    “It’s somebody’s daughter,” I said flatly. “Tomorrow morning I have to talk to the mother.”
I stepped close to him. “You want me to tell her that her daughter is stretched out on a metal tray
in a police morgue, that with any luck she’ll still be there when I get back to make the
arrangements? Is that what you’d want to hear?”
    Iverson sighed. “Mister Welles, I’d really like to help, but . . .”
    “Put an officer with me,” I said. “He can escort me to the station morgue, standby while I
check the body and make some calls, then escort me back here. Simple. Quick. I’m not
interested in your other problem. I just need to take care of the girl.”
    Iverson was silent for a moment, then pulled the portable radio from his belt and keyed the
transmit button. “This is Fox Zone One. I’ll be busy for a while. Have Echo Zone One cover
for half an hour.”
    He lowered the radio and nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
     
    The morgue was in the basement of the Uptown station. Four coolers in the wall and a large
metal autopsy table in the middle of the room. There’s a full morgue at Central District station,
but unless it’s a complicated case, or a Vee, they handle it at the local stations.
    The morgue attendant checked his clipboard and opened Cooler Two. “MaryAnn Klinger,”
he said as he pulled out the tray. “Good thing you got here when you did. She’s marked for
disposal this afternoon.”
    “Little quick, isn’t it?” I asked. “She’s barely been here a day. I thought you held for 72
hours.”
    The attendant shrugged. “We got four coolers here. They don’t like us to get stacked up.
We’re supposed to hold them for three days . . .” His eyes met those of Lt. Iverson. “. . . but if
the log says disposal, that’s what we do.”
    There was a sheet over the corpse and I pulled it back to reveal the face. I hadn’t known
MaryAnn in life, but I’d been carrying her picture around in my pocket for the better part of a
month, so I knew what she looked like. I also wanted to get a look at the wound in her neck, the
wound caused by what the investigating officer had called an unknown object.
    “What the hell is this,” I muttered, looking down at her.
    The morgue attendant glanced over and nodded. “Oh, yeah, log says they took part of her
neck for the docs at Central to examine. Try to identify what made the wound, I guess.”
    The right side of the girl’s neck was missing, from ear to shoulder. Whoever had removed it
hadn’t done a particularly clean job of it. It looked like it had been hacked out of her.
    “What butcher did this?” I asked softly.
    Before the attendant could speak, Iverson held up his hand. “No,” he said firmly. “I
understand you want to see that the girl is taken care of. But questions about internal department
procedures have nothing to do with that, and I’m not going to allow it.”
    I walked to the black telephone on the wall next to the coolers and dialed a number.
“Charlie Welles,” I said when it was answered. “I have a pickup for you at Uptown District
police station. Name on the DB is MaryAnn Klinger. Destination is Downtown District police
station. They’ll be expecting you at both ends. Do it before sundown today.”
    Iverson started toward me, but I ignored him. I hung up and dialed another number.
“Charlie Welles, calling for Captain Mutz.” I stared at Iverson. “Hey Jimmy. B&P are going to
bring in a DB from Uptown station later today. Name is MaryAnn Klinger. Could you
make sure there’s no trouble at your end?”
    I listened. “Yeah, missing person case. Uptown found her tapped dry in a dumpster
yesterday morning.” I listened again. “No, no problem. Just put her in the cooler overnight, till
I have a chance to talk to the mother. Once I get an okay, I’ll get B&P back over tomorrow to
handle the rest.”
    I hung up the phone. Ignoring Iverson, I looked at the morgue attendant.