Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

candy and newspaper store and Jake Hicks, the mailman, was walking past Gould's Spirit Shop on his way to buy the Sunday paper. Jake waved a hand at the two men, who waved back.
    Under his breath, Copin said, "Looks like Jake's put on a couple of pounds again."
    "Does it every winter," Hallock replied.
    Hallock and Copin parted company, and Hallock walked back along Center to the police station. Usually Sunday was his one day off but today was different. He'd miss Sunday dinner with Fran and the kids. He hated that. They always had his favorite meal on Sunday—roast beef, mashed potatoes, tomato aspic, green beans, and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Well, it couldn't be helped.
    Inside, behind the high desk, Frank Tuthill was ending the midnight-to-eight shift. Tuthill was twenty-eight, single, and eager. Hallock thought he had a hungry look, like a bird of prey, but he liked the man, trusted him.
    Tuthill said, "Telephone's going crazy, Chief. Seems like everybody and his brother's heard about the murder and knows who did it."
    Hallock raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Any good leads?"
    "Nada."
    "Got to follow them up anyway, Frank."
    "I know. I gottem all down here for Richie and Al," he said, tapping his pencil against a yellow lined pad.
    Richard Clark and Al Wiggins worked the eight-to-four shift, and Kathy Booth was the radio operator.
    Hallock went on into the back where his office was. It was a good-size room with two gray metal desks and one battered wooden one. The walls had been painted a light green ten years before, and the only other touch of color was some orange plastic chairs. Everything else was gray metal.
    He sat at his desk, took off his hat, and looked at the gold badge on it that said Chief. How long could he stay chief if he didn't solve this damn murder? Gildersleeve would use it, for sure. But why was he thinking so negatively? The hell with that. He was going to solve it and that was all there was to it.
    -------
    At nine o'clock, Colin Maguire sat across the desk from Hallock writing in his notebook. Hallock liked Maguire. There was something about him that spoke to the chief. He even liked the way Maguire looked, dressed. The droopy mustache was the only thing that was kind of off-putting, but Hallock suspected the man wore it to give some maturity to his boyish face. Still, he wondered what he'd look like without it, and planned to say something about the mustache when he got to know Maguire a little better.
    Colin said, "So the M.E. says no rape, huh?"
    "Hard to tell after all this time in the water, but there was no tearing or bruising there."
    "No semen either?"
    "No. But it doesn't mean she didn't have intercourse before. Just too much time has passed. And the water."
    "How long's she been dead?"
    "About a month. Cool weather kept her from really going bad."
    Colin nodded and tried to blank out the image. Quickly he asked, "What about the thing around her neck?"
    "Part of a sheet. The forensic boys will check that out."
    "And the cuts?"
    "Made with a sharp knife, serrated edge. Knife probably held in a fist, pulling downward and across. Done after death."
    "Do you have any more ideas about what the A means?"
    "The thing is, Maguire, to you and me it looked like an A, but maybe it wasn't that at all."
    "True."
    "Could be anything."
    "But you think it's an A, don't you, Chief?"
    "Might be."
    Colin smiled, stuck the end of his pen in his cleft.
    "That how you got that thing?" Hallock asked.
    "Huh?"
    "The hole in your chin."
    He laughed.
    "Reason I say that is, my mother used to tell us boys a story about how she spent months twirling the eraser on the end of a pencil in her chin, trying to get a dimple there like Jean Harlow."
    "Did it work?"
    "Nope."
    "How about that A, Chief?" Colin asked, refusing to be distracted.
    "No kidding, Maguire, we don't know if it's an A or not."
    "So when will we know, when somebody turns up with a B?"
    Hallock frowned. "Not funny. And I mean what I say. Don't go writing