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I’m being asked.”
    Freckles nodded.
    â€œFreddie,” he said. “Whyn’t you check around the perimeter of the building, see if there’s anything might be useful.”
    â€œHe call me stupid?” Freddie said.
    â€œNo, no,” Freckles said. “He was talking about me.”
    Freddie nodded slowly and gave me a tough look so I wouldn’t think I could get away with anything. Then he took a big Mag flashlight from the cruiser and went around the corner of the building.
    â€œAccording to the call we got,” Freckles said, “there’s a dead guy on the seventh floor, suspicious circumstances, and you were at the front door asking about him.”
    â€œSuspicious circumstances,” I said.
    Freckles shrugged.
    â€œOur dispatcher talks like that,” he said. “You now know what I know. Why were you looking for him.”
    â€œI was tailing him for a client,” I said. “When hedidn’t come out, I called his office. When he didn’t answer, I wondered and went to the door. Security guard went to check, and that’s what I know.”
    â€œWho’s the client?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œYou got no privilege here,” Freckles said.
    â€œI am an agent of the client’s attorney,” I said. “His privilege might extend to me.”
    â€œI doubt it,” Freckles said. “But I’m still in my first year of law school.”
    â€œMight work,” I said.
    â€œMaybe,” Freckles said.
    As we were talking another dark Crown Vic pulled into the parking lot. It had the blue plates that Massachusetts puts on official cars.
    â€œHere they are,” Freckles said. “State cops.”
    The car door opened and Healy got out.
    I said, “Evening, Captain.”
    He looked at me for a moment.
    â€œOh shit,” he said.
    â€œOh shit?”
    â€œYeah. You’re in this.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo that means it’ll be a fucking mess.”
    â€œI thought you’d welcome my help,” I said.
    â€œLike a case of clap,” Healy said.
    â€œThat’s cold,” I said.
    â€œIt is,” Healy said and walked on past me toward the Kinergy Building.
    â€œYou know the captain,” Freckles said.
    â€œI do,” I said. “We’re tight.”
    â€œI could see that,” Freckles said.

11
    I t was 5:30 in the morning. Healy and I were drinking coffee out of thick white mugs at the counter of a small diner on Route 20. I felt the way you feel when you’ve been up all night and drunk too much coffee. If I still smoked, I would have drunk too much coffee and smoked too many cigarettes and felt worse. It wasn’t much in the way of consolation. But one makes do.
    â€œGood aim?” I said.
    â€œOr good luck,” Healy said. “Any one of the three shots would have been enough. ME thinks he was dead three, four hours.”
    â€œThat would make it about six or seven in the evening.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œLotta people still in the building at that time.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWidens the range of suspects,” I said.
    â€œYep. Anybody coulda done it. Anybody still working. Anybody walked in during business hours, hung around afterwards.”
    â€œSo, basically, anyone could have shot him,” I said.
    â€œWe’ll start by talking with everyone who worked after five,” Healy said.
    â€œSecurity?” I said.
    â€œSign-in starts at five. There’s a guard on the front desk and a roamer in the building. We’re checking anybody signed in, make sure all the names match.”
    â€œWhy would you wait until after five and sign in,” I said, “when you could go in at five of five and not sign in.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t,” Healy said.
    â€œBut procedure is procedure,” I said.
    â€œUn-huh.”
    â€œWhy I left the cops,” I said.
    â€œYou left the cops because they canned your ass for