He dragged out a large white handkerchief and loudly blew his nose. "Goddamned allergy. It's the myrtle. I'm a martyr to myrtle."
17
Decker said, "Maitland was frisked, I hope? I mean he couldn't have smuggled the weapon out of the house down the leg of his pants or anything?"
"Not a chance. Wekelo subjected him to a full body search before the paramedics carried him out of the house."
Decker brushed back his breeze-blown pompadour. "I don't know ... I'm beginning to smell something wrong with this already."
"So we haven't located the murder weapon. We probably will, but even if we don't we can still get a conviction. Who else could have done it?"
"You're probably right. But it kind of reminds me of the Behrens case. Like, Jim Behrens obviously garroted his entire family, but there was no apparent motive, and we never found the garrote, and Behrens claimed that some invisible force had come into his house and done it. The whole thing was so goddamned far out that the jury wouldn't convict." He put on his black-lense Police sunglasses. "Juries watch too much X-Files."
Cab sneezed and blew his nose again.
"I bet you'll shake that off, once you're out on the lake," Decker reassured him.
Cab frowned at him. "What are you talking about, lake?" "You're going fishing this weekend, aren't you?"
"Who told you that?"
"Er—you told me."
"When did I tell you?"
"I don't know . . . couple of days ago."
"I only decided last night."
"Well, you must've mentioned that you were thinking about it, that's all."
Cab narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I'm going fishing with Bill and Alfredick, if you must know, out to the Falling Creek reservoir."
"That's great, Cab. You deserve a break."
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"You think so?" Then—even more suspiciously, "Since when did you give a fuck?"
Decker was tempted to say, "Every time you're on duty," but all he did was shrug and say, "I care about my fellow officers, Cab."
Cab still looked unimpressed, and blew his nose again.
19
CHAPTER THREE
Decker went back to headquarters. The first thing he wanted to do was listen to Alison Maitland's 911 call. Down in the basement, Jimmy Freedman, their sound technician, played it back for him, his chair tilted back, chewing gum and sniffing and tappety-tapping his pencil against the recording console.
"There's definitely a fault on the line, Sergeant, but it's not like any regular fault. The regular faults are usually opens, which give you white noise, or shorts, which gives you, like, static, or else you get intermittents, which are usually caused by earth shifting or water ingress. But you listen to this."
He switched on the tape, and Decker heard the 911 operator responding to Alison's call. "Emergency, which service?" This was followed by a crackling sound, and a very faraway voice, screaming. "Yes, ambulance"—more screaming, more crackling—"urgent—bleeding so bad!"
"What the hell?" Decker said. "Sounds like she's got the TV on."
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"Uh-huh," Jimmy said. "It's not background noise. It's actually breaking into her call from another location." "Crossed line, then?"
Jimmy shook his head. "It could be some kind of resistive fault, like an earth or a contact. But it's very strange, the way it just switches off and on. Listen."
"It's my husband—blood everywhere!"
Decker blew out his cheeks. "That's when he must have been stabbing her. Jesus."
But then there was shouting. It sounded like a crowd, panicking, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying.
"For God's sake—Alison-4140 Davis Street—my husband!"
"Ma'am, can you repeat that address please? I can hardly hear you."
Screaming, and then a crunching noise.
"Forty-one forty Davis Street! You have to help me—so much blood—you hear me?"
Decker listened to the tape to the end. Then he said, "Any ideas? That sounds like a goddamned battle."
"Who knows? Somebody else could have had their phone
off the hook, and, like you say, there could have been a war movie playing on television. But it would have had to be a recording, because I checked the TV listings and there were no war movies playing on any channel when this call was being made.
"Like I say, though, it wasn't like a normal fault. I'll have to talk to Bill Duggan at the telephone company, see what he has to say about it. Meanwhile I'll do what I can to clean it up. Maybe we can hear what those guys are yowling about."
At 9:00 P.M. that evening, Decker received a call from the Medical College Hospital that Gerald Maitland had recov‑
21
ered sufficiently to be questioned. Decker called Hicks to see if he could join him, but Hicks was still taking 4140 Davis Street to pieces in his efforts to find the murder weapon.
He sounded exhausted.
"I was wondering whether we ought to cut open the couch. I mean it's real genuine leather, and it must have been pretty damned expensive."
"This is a homicide investigation, Hicks, not a furniture sale. Did you check up the chimneys?"
"I called in Vacu-Stack. They vacuum-cleaned all five of them, but all they found was dead birds."
"Tried the bedding? I found a shotgun sewn up in a mattress once."
"We tore up the mattresses, the comforters, the pillows. We pulled down the drapes—you know, in case the murder weapon was hidden in the hem. We even tore their clothes to pieces."
"Looked in the kitchen? Cereal boxes, packets of spaghetti, rolls of foil?"
"You name it, Lieutenant, we've looked in it."
"Okay . . . keep at it. I'll call you when I'm done at the hospital."
He was walking out through the shiny new lobby when a girl's voice called out, "Decker!"
He skidded to a reluctant stop and turned around. It was Officer Mayzie Shifflett, from traffic. She had a dimpled, kittenish face that made her look five years younger than she really was, with a little tipped-up nose and freckles and big brown eyes. Her khaki shirt was stretched tight over her small, rounded breasts, and her skirt was stretched tight over her firm, rounded bottom. Her blond hair was fastened in a tight French pleat.
"Are you avoiding me, Decker?"
22
"Of course not. Caseload, that's all."
"You weren't working Tuesday night, were you?" "Tuesday? Ah—when was Tuesday?"
"Tuesday was the day before yesterday, and Tuesday was the day when you were supposed to be taking me to Awful Arthur's."
He kicked the heel of his hand against the side of his head. "Jesus—you're right, I was. Oh, Mayzie, I'm so sorry. Tuesday, my God. Do you know what happened?"
"Of course I know what happened. I put on my killer blouse and I pinned up my hair and I sprayed myself with Giorgio and then I waited for two and a half hours watching Star Trek until I finally decided that you weren't going to show."
"My mom had a fall. Her hip, you know? I had to go see her. I'm truly sorry. I was so worried about her that I totally forgot we had a date."
"Your mom had a fall. Decker—can't you even lie to me without bring your mother into it?"
"I'm telling you the truth, Mayzie. Do you think I would pass up on a date with you unless something really, really serious came up? Listen—I promise that I'll make it up to you."
"Like when?"
"I'm not sure. You've heard about this homicide on Davis Street—young woman had her head cut off. It's a shocker—I'm right in the middle of that."
"Decker, I have to talk to you."
He clasped her shoulders and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Let's make it next Tuesday, then. Same place, same time."
"Decker, I have to talk to you sooner than that. I missed my period."
He snorted. "Can't you even lie to me without bringing my children into it?"