We ate under the fans, on the thick wool rug, our plates, bowls, and glasses spread out as if at a picnic. The sun had set, and the lighting came from indirect, hidden sources, mostly tucked behind the plants to project the giant shadows of their leaves across the ceiling and walls. It was all I had hoped it would be earlier, when I’d opted to come despite my exhaustion. Now, that deadness at my center had been smoothed to mere fatigue and I was feeling whole again, and more hopeful that, with time and a few breaks, what had seemed chaos to me earlier would sort itself out.
Gail got up, walked over to me, and told me to take off my shirt and roll over onto my stomach. She then sat on my haunches and began working her fingers into my back, locating the knotted muscles and setting them loose. She was very good, trained in this as she was in the other extensions of her naturalist philosophy.
After some fifteen minutes of pure bliss, I rolled over onto my back and looked up at her, still straddling my hips. Her face was shining with perspiration. “You do good work.”
“I’d take that as a compliment if I didn’t know you’re only half conscious.”
I laid my hands high on her bare thighs, which were hot and slippery from her exertion. “Christ, you worked up a sweat.”
She smiled at me and in one fluid movement removed her T-shirt. She was wearing nothing underneath. “That’s not all.”
When the phone rang, I listened to the answering machine giving its predictable message. Then I heard Sammie Martens’s voice: “Lieutenant, I hate to bother you, but if you’re there, could you either pick up or call me at the office right away? Thanks.”
Gail, now naked, had dozed off on top of me. We were still on the rug, still intertwined and slightly sticky with sweat. I slid out from under her and glanced at my watch as I answered. At most, I’d been asleep a couple of hours. It wasn’t quite midnight. “What’s up, Sammie?”
“Sorry, Joe, but I think I’ve got the man we’ve been looking for, the one who spent the night under the Elm Street bridge.”
16
Ever since Sammie had reported that Toby, her homeless informant, had been offered five hundred dollars by some mystery man to locate the bridge dweller, I’d told her to concentrate solely on finding him. Despite the growing work load, and the help she could have given by fulfilling other duties, my instinct was that the killer was stalking that bum, and that if we didn’t find him first, we never would. Her phone call gave me hope that we were close to a major breakthrough.
Buddy Schultz almost dropped his mop when I banged through the back entrance to the Municipal Center. “Holy cow, Lieutenant. You almost scared me to death. Somethin’ up?”
“Just a little late-night work. Sorry I startled you.”
He shook his head in wonder. Compared to his other tenants, the police department was probably a prime source of entertainment. He made me feel almost sorry I couldn’t tell him of a major riot breaking out.
Sammie was waiting for me in my office, which, when I entered, I wished she hadn’t been. I was instantly assaulted by the overwhelming odor of cheap wine, stale sweat, and what could only be described as rotting animal matter, all of it emanating from the tattered pile of humanity that was parked on one of my two guest chairs.
Sammie rose as I entered. “Hi, Lieutenant. This is Milo. Milo, Lieutenant Joe Gunther.”
Milo looked as if he’d fallen asleep, a gesture I envied him. I wondered myself how much longer I could keep functioning without some sleep. I sat on the edge of my desk, my fingers unconsciously dabbling in the large ashtray filled with paper clips. “Hello, Milo. How’re you doin’?”
He looked at me with one yellow, watery eye. The other one had a whitish glaze and didn’t seem to function. “Okay.” His voice was low and gravelly, as if he had a severely sore throat.
“Sammie tells me you used to live under the Elm Street Bridge. That right?”
He thought about that. In fact, all his responses were delayed by long pauses, although I became less convinced as we went along that thoughtfulness had much to do with it.
“Yup.”
“Were you living there the night before last?”
“Before last? Sure.”
“How long had you been living there?”
The eye, which had wandered to the floor, slid back up and fixed me again, watching me carefully. “How long? I don’t know.”
“A few days? A few weeks?”
“A while.” Behind his caked, multi-stained beard, I caught the hint of a smile.
“And three nights ago-the night before last-did anything happen that struck you as unusual?”
He was wearing a raincoat, and he removed one hand from its pocket to scratch at his forehead, which was grimy and spotted with scabs. His fingernails were snaggled and black. “Like what?”
I had to be careful here. If I suggested a possibility he found acceptable, some defense lawyer down the line could accuse me of creating the very story I wanted to hear. “How did you sleep that night, Milo? Did you sleep through the night?”
“I woke up to piss.” He glanced at Sammie to check for a reaction, but she was busy scribbling on her note pad.
“Did you see or hear anything unusual during that time?”
“I pissed in the water. I like the sound it makes.”
“I meant something outside the area in which you were sleeping.”
“Like what?” Again the sly smile.
I looked at Milo for a moment, wondering about that smile. Then I circled my desk, pulled out the file Tyler had put together on the bridge site, and resumed my perch. “I don’t know; how about gunshots? Hear any of those?”
“Nope.”
I feigned surprise. “You’re kidding. No shots? Something like a backfire, maybe?”
His brow furrowed. “I never read nothin’ about gunshots.”
“I’m asking what you heard, Milo.”
His face closed down to an obstinate mask. “No. No shots.”
“What did you make your bed out of?”
“I was under the bridge. There wasn’t no bed.”
“But you slept on something. What was it?”
“You know what it was. You found it. Don’t you believe me or somethin’? I was under that bridge.”
“I believe you, Milo, but the bedding was missing. We need to know what it was you used as a bed.”
Sammie had stopped writing and was looking at me strangely.
Milo’s eyes shifted back and forth several times, his lips tight. “Cardboard. I slept on cardboard boxes.”
“Not newspapers? I thought you guys liked newspaper.”
“It tears.”
“So, no newspaper at all.”
“No.” His voice was defiant.
“Why’d you sleep so near the water? Weren’t you afraid of getting wet, or of rolling over into the stream in your sleep?”
“No.” More doubtful now.
“I would have tucked myself right up under the bridge, maybe dug a shelf so I’d be high and dry. Why didn’t you do that?”
“Too much work.” He didn’t believe it anymore than I did.
“You smoke, Milo?”
“Why?”
“We found some butts. They yours?”
“Yeah.”
“You smoke a lot, huh.”
“Yeah. A lot.” His confidence was returning.
“Bullshit.” I tossed the file onto the desk. It made a little slapping sound in the quiet room. Milo watched it as if it might fly off and attack him, but it already had.
“Why’re you telling us this, Milo? You were nowhere near that bridge.”
He bristled. “Was too.”
“Whoever was living there had been there for weeks, well over a month. The bed was made of newspaper. It was tucked up onto a shelf right under the angle of the bridge, six feet from the water, and there wasn’t a butt to be seen that was under two months old. Why are you here, Milo?”
He went back to staring at the floor, his hands jammed into his pockets. Sammie was looking embarrassed.