Laurie walked out and got into the cab.
“Now where?” Michael asked.
Laurie gave her address on Nineteenth Street and leaned forward to look out at the Spoletto Funeral Home as the taxi pulled away. It had been a wasted trip. Or had it? After she’d been talking with Mr. Spoletto for a moment, she’d realized that his forehead wasn’t oily. The man had been perspiring despite the temperature inside the funeral parlor being decidedly on the cool side. Laurie scratched her head, wondering if that meant anything or if it were just another example of her grabbing at straws.
“Was it a friend?” Michael asked.
“Was who a friend?”
“The deceased,” Michael said.
Laurie let out a little mirthless laugh. “Hardly,” she said.
“I know what you mean,” Michael said, looking at Laurie in the rearview mirror. “Relationships today are very complicated. And I’ll tell you why it is…”
Laurie smiled as she settled back to listen. She loved philosophical taxi drivers, and Michael was a regular Plato of his profession.
When the cab pulled up outside Laurie’s building, Laurie saw a familiar figure in the foyer. It was Lou Soldano slouched over against the mailboxes, clutching a bottle of wine in a straw basket. Laurie paid Michael the fare along with a generous tip, then hurried inside.
“I’m sorry,” Laurie offered. “I thought you were going to call before you came over.”
Lou blinked as if he’d been asleep. “I did,” he said, after a brief coughing spree. “I got your answering machine. So I left the message that I was on my way.”
Laurie glanced at her watch as she unlocked the inner door. She’d only been gone for a little over an hour, which was what she’d expected.
“I thought you were only going to work for another half hour,” Lou said.
“I wasn’t working,” Laurie said, as she called for the elevator. “I took a trip out to the Spoletto Funeral Home.”
Lou frowned.
“Now don’t give me extra grief,” Laurie said as they boarded the elevator.
“So what did you find? Franconi lying in state?” Lou asked sarcastically.
“I’m not going to tell you a thing if you’re going to act that way,” Laurie complained.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Lou said.
“I didn’t find anything,” Laurie admitted. “The body I went to see was no longer on view. The family had cut it off at six p.m.”
The elevator opened. While Laurie struggled with her locks, Lou curtsied for Debra Engler, whose door opened against its chain as usual.
“But the director acted a little suspicious,” Laurie said. “At least I think he did.”
“How so?” Lou asked as they entered Laurie’s apartment. Tom came running out of the bedroom to purr and rub against Laurie’s leg.
Laurie put her briefcase on the small half moon-shaped hall console table in order to bend down to scratch Tom vigorously behind his ear.
“He was perspiring while I was talking with him,” Laurie said.
Lou paused with his coat half off. “Is that all?” he asked. “The man was perspiring?”
“Yes, that’s it,” Laurie said. She knew what Lou was thinking; it was written all over his face.
“Did he start perspiring after you asked him difficult and incriminating questions about Franconi’s body?” Lou asked. “Or was he perspiring before you began talking with him?”
“Before,” Laurie admitted.
Lou rolled his eyes. “Whoa! Another Sherlock Holmes incarnate,” he said. “Maybe you should take over my job. I don’t have your powers of intuition and inductive reasoning!”
“You promised not to give me grief,” Laurie said.
“I never promised,” Lou said.
“All right, it was a wasted trip,” Laurie said. “Let’s get some food. I’m starved.”
Lou switched the bottle of wine from one hand to the other, allowing him to swing his arm out of his trench coat. When he did, he clumsily knocked Laurie’s briefcase to the floor. The impact caused it to spring open and scatter the contents. The crash terrified the cat, who disappeared back into the bedroom after a desperate struggle to gain traction on the highly polished wood floor.
“What a klutz,” Lou said. “I’m sorry!” He bent down to retrieve the papers, pens, microscope slides, and other paraphernalia and bumped into Laurie in the process.
“Maybe it’s best you just sit down,” Laurie suggested with a laugh.
“No, I insist,” Lou said.
After they’d gotten most of the contents back into the briefcase, Lou picked up the videotape. “What’s this, your favorite X-rated feature?”
“Hardly,” Laurie commented.
Lou turned it over to read the label. “The Franconi shooting?” he questioned. “CNN sent you this out-of-the-blue?”
Laurie straightened up. “No, I requested it. I was going to use the tape to corroborate the findings when I did the autopsy. I thought it could make an interesting paper to show how reliable forensics can be.”
“Mind if I look at it?” Lou asked.
“Of course not,” Laurie said. “Didn’t you see it on TV?”
“Along with everyone else,” Lou said. “But it would still be interesting to see the tape.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a copy at police headquarters,” Laurie said.
“Hey, maybe we do,” Lou said. “I just haven’t seen it.”
“Man, this ain’t your night,” Warren teased Jack. “You must be getting too old.”
Jack had decided when he’d gotten to the playground late and had had to wait to get into the game, that he was going to win no matter whom he was teamed up with. But it didn’t happen. In fact, Jack lost every game he played in because Warren and Spit had gotten on the same team and neither could miss. Their team had won every game including the last, which had just been capped off with a sweet “give and go” that gave Spit an easy final lay-up.
Jack walked over to the sidelines on rubbery legs. He’d played his heart out and was perspiring profusely. He pulled a towel from where he’d jammed it into the chain-link fence and wiped his face. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
“Come on, man!” Warren teased from the edge of the court, where he was dribbling a basketball back and forth between his legs. “One more run. We’ll let you win this time.”
“Yeah, sure!” Jack called back. “You never let nobody win nothing.” Jack made it a point to adapt his syntax for the environment. “I’m out’a here.”
Warren sauntered over and hooked one of his ringers through the fence and leaned against it. “What’s up with your shortie?” he asked. “Natalie’s been driving me up the wall asking questions about her since we haven’t seen nothing of you guys, you know what I’m saying?”
Jack looked at Warren’s sculpted face. To add insult to injury, as far as Jack was concerned, Warren wasn’t even perspiring, nor was he breathing particularly heavily. And to make matters worse, he’d been playing before Jack had arrived. The only evidence of exertion was a tiny triangle of sweat down the front of his cut-off sweatshirt.
“Reassure Natalie that Laurie’s fine,” Jack said. “She and I were just taking a little vacation from each other. It was mostly my fault. I just wanted to cool things down a bit.”
“I hear you,” Warren said.
“I was with her last night,” Jack added. “And things are looking up. She was asking me about you and Natalie, so you weren’t alone.”
Warren nodded. “You sure you’re finished or do you want to run one more?”
“I’m finished,” Jack said.
“Take care, man,” Warren said as he pushed off the fence. Then he yelled out to the others: “Let’s run, you bad asses.”
Jack shook his head in dismay as he watched Warren amble away. He was envious of the man’s stamina. Warren truly wasn’t tired.
Jack pulled on his sweatshirt and started for home. He’d not won a single game, and although during the play the inability to win had seemed overwhelmingly frustrating, now it didn’t matter. The exercise had cleared his mind, and for the hour and a half he’d played, he hadn’t thought about work.