Nightlife Read Online Free PDF

away. That was how his body got found. His crew came twice a week during business hours, when he was usually at work. They had a key, but they also had an alibi—people who saw them cleaning houses at the time of death. They came in yesterday and there he was.”
    Joe Pitt stood in the center of the room and slowly turned all the way around, studying every detail. “Have you pieced together the sequence?”
    She nodded. “He left work earlier than usual, but didn’t have to tell anybody why, because he was the boss. He was wearing a dark gray suit that day. He was home by four, set his briefcase down in the kitchen, and came up here. He took off the suit and tie and hung them up in here.” She walked to the huge walk-in closet and pushed the door open so Pitt could see the neat row of coats and trousers hanging along the pole. At least four were shades of gray. “They’re in the lab, of course. Next he threw his shirt, socks, and underwear in the hamper, went into the bathroom, ran the water in the tub, and got in.”
    “So he was still doing everything voluntarily—no chance of force?”
    “There are no abrasions or contusions on him to show a struggle, and there was no water splashed around when the maids found him. At some point, the killer probably slipped in, approached him from behind, held the gun a foot from his head, and fired once. The entry wound is behind the right ear. The neighbors on both sides and across the street were still at work, and nobody else in the neighborhood remembers hearing a shot.”
    “You figure it was intended to be a faked suicide at first?”
    “I think so, but it was botched. Maybe Mr. Poole heard the guy at the last instant and flinched. Maybe the killer just got too eager and fired early.”
    “Was the gun Poole’s? Did he have one that’s missing?”
    “He didn’t have any firearms registered to him.”
    Pitt looked down at his feet. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”
    “No,” said Catherine Hobbes. “He seems to have been secure and prosperous. He had no enemies anybody knows about. He just came back from vacation a couple of weeks ago, and the people at work said he seemed happy and relaxed.”
    “What about women?”
    “What about them?”
    “Did he like them? Did he like one in particular?”
    “That’s one of the things that’s been worrying me. The trace evidence people found some long, straight blond hairs. There were two on suits of his, a few on the carpet in here, one on a bathrobe. The women on the Mighty Maids crew are all black or Hispanic.”
    “Any blondes at his company?”
    “Two, but the hair isn’t a match for either one. Nobody seems to remember seeing him with a blond woman lately. There are no female relatives who live in town, and his mother says none have long, straight blond hair.”
    “This blond woman seems like the most promising thing I’ve heard,” said Pitt. “She could have been married. That would give Poole a reason to try to keep the relationship quiet, and a good motive for the husband to kill him.”
    “We’ve been concentrating on her, and we’ve found nothing yet. On the other hand, we do have one odd thing that turned up unexpectedly.”
    “What?”
    “You.”
    “I don’t feel like an odd thing.”
    She shrugged. “I got an order from my captain that I’d be cooperating with an expert from Los Angeles, a former D.A.’s investigator who will help with the case. I looked you up on Google and found lots of articles about you, mostly in the
Los Angeles Times,
but in national magazines too. Pictures of you and everything.”
    “Anything interesting?”
    “You’re retired from the D.A.’s office—honorably, it said—and now you make a gazillion dollars a year doing private investigation. At that point, I was ready to invite you over for a home-cooked dinner and a shot at meeting my parents. Then I talked to my captain and found out you were working for the cousin.”
    “You lost