“I’ll take the head,” he said, and they casually picked up Mr. Potter and ventured down the stairs.
“This is like something from the Twilight Zone,” I said to Julie. “He’s talking about my boss’s head.”
“Well, at least it’s still attached to the body.”
I gave her a look of disgust.
“As opposed to being decapitated. Look, I’m just trying to see the bright side here.”
“Good job. Maybe you could write a self-help book. Look on the Bright Side. At Least He Wasn’t Decapitated.”
Julie gave me a slight smile. “Look at that,” she said, suddenly excited, pointing to the floor outside my condo. “What’s that? Is that blood?”
I looked where she was pointing but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“What is that?” asked Julie, walking over to the door and bending down.
Peering closer I could see a red drop glistening against the beige tiles. We both bent down to get a closer look.
“If it’s blood,” said Julie, “that could be evidence that someone left your apartment after the murder.”
I touched the tip of my finger to the red drop. “Don’t touch it,” snarled Julie. “You’re contaminating the evidence.”
“It’s wet,” I snapped. “Wet blood.”
“Shit,” said Julie. “It must have dripped off the body bag.” She stood up. “Sorry for getting your hopes up.”
Julie watched as I wiped my finger on my pants.
“Did you just do that? Corpse blood?”
“I wasn’t thinking — in case you haven’t noticed I’m under a lot of pressure here.”
Detective Crowley was sitting on the couch talking on his cell phone. “I’m not getting skim. I’m sick of all this low fat crap. Julia Child drank full fat and she lived till she was ninety.” All in a day’s work for a detective I guess. Zip a man into a body bag and then go to the grocery store for some fatty milk. The detective looked up and saw us. “Gotta go. Text me.” He shoved the phone in his pocket. “My wife wants us to lose some weight before Christmas.”
“Ahh.” I said. Christmas was in a week. He had a good forty pounds to lose.
“So Ms Valentyn,” he said, nodding his head at an officer holding a roll of yellow crime scene tape. “Your apartment is going to be off-limits for a few days, but we’d like you to stay within reach. We’ll need to be in touch with you. Is that a problem?”
“No problem. Why would it be a problem?”
“I just want to ascertain where you will be in the city.” He flipped through his notebook. “Do we have your cell number? And could we have the keys to your apartment?”
“Is she an official suspect?” asked Julie.
“No one is an official suspect yet.”
“Who will you be looking at, suspect-wise?” I asked. “This is going to be a difficult investigation. I can’t picture anyone wanting to kill Mr. Potter. He wasn’t the type to have enemies.” I had a sudden revelation. “It’s almost always someone close to the victim. A family member, a business associate. Murders are seldom random.” Shit. I was a business associate. “I mean a high-level business associate, not a person who just happens to work in the same office. Someone who stands to gain from the victim’s death.”
Detective Crowley didn’t look bowled over by this insight. “We’ll be looking carefully at every angle.” He checked his notebook. “Where will you be staying?”
“She’ll be with me,” said Julie, in a firm voice as she handed him one of her business cards. “Does she need a lawyer?”
“That is completely up to Ms Valentyn.”
I went over to the hook by the door and got my spare set of keys for him. “Guess you don’t need my car key,” I said as I struggled to remove it from the key chain.
“As long as you don’t plan on going anywhere in your car.”
“Nowhere?”
“Nowhere out of the city,” he said with a tight smile. “No making a run for Mexico.”
He was a riot.
“Could you tell me who else has a key to
Barbara Boswell, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC