Read Inspector O 02 - Hidden Moon for Free Online

soon as it rang, I knew I could never get to it in time to turn it off. I probably couldn’t find the switch, or the button, or whatever it took to kill the thing. The longer the tune played, the wider the little man’s eyes became. He stifled a laugh. He fluttered his hands delicately and put them to his brow. He stifled another laugh, this second one only barely. Still the phone wouldn’t quit; if anything, it got louder. From now on, the damned thingstayed in the car, under a blanket. Maybe I could even lose it; possibly it could slip from my hand into the river. No one in the Ministry knew how to change the ringer, or so they claimed. “Crazy, you’re the only one with that problem, O,” they said. “Must be preprogrammed or something. Try and find an instruction manual.”
    Finally the phone fell silent. The little man coughed and looked away. I knew it was probably hopeless to try to regain a sense of control, but I was aggravated enough to make the effort. “The order for the autopsy, who gave it to you?”
    The little man opened the door a crack wider. “I don’t know, it’s not signed, but it has a big party chop on it, and a number, in red ink. We get them maybe once a year. The courier quakes in his boots when he hands one of these over. The doctor reads them, shakes her head, then locks them in a little safe under her desk. I don’t know what they say exactly, I only get a quick glimpse. But I know what they mean. Do the body, then get rid of it, forget you saw it, tidy up. Does it look like poison? No, can’t be! Must have been natural causes. That look of agony on the stiff’s face was just a result of muscular resonance, happens all the time, check the box that says, ‘No further investigation necessary.’ Have a cup of tea, clear your mind, look to the future.” It was more than he meant to say, and he looked nervous when he had said it.
    “What is muscular resonance? I’ve never heard of it.”
    “It’s a made-up term.” This was said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone, as if morgues get to make up vocabulary as a law of nature. “Someone here invented it a while ago to satisfy the paperwork, and we’ve never had a question. By now, there must be a thick folder somewhere up top, marked ‘Muscular Resonance.’ ”
    “What about the stiff in there that got hit by a bus?”
    He paled. “No such animal, Inspector. Now, go away, would you?”
    “You said you were doing an autopsy. How many bodies do you have in there?”
    “We don’t deal in numbers, we deal in quality. Whatever we have, we have. I wouldn’t know about buses.”
    Clearly, they still had the body of the bank robber in there. Sowhy wouldn’t they show it to Min? And why didn’t they want to let me in? If this wasn’t category three, I didn’t know what was.
    Curiosity is fine, but sometimes it impairs judgment. If they didn’t want anyone to see the body, it was because they didn’t want anyone to see the body, or to ask any questions about it, or even inquire about articles of clothing. Normally, I would have figured it was the morgue’s business and walked away. But not this time. This time I said, “You have any silk stockings lying around?” The little man responded with a blank look. I had been curious; now I was mad. It wasn’t an innocent blank look, not one tinged with puzzlement or edging toward incomprehension. It was defiantly blank, and I didn’t plan to spend the afternoon on the doorstep of the morgue held at bay by such a look. Then I remembered the face. “You may not know me, but I know you. Your aunt lives in my building, on the ground floor. She needed medicine last year. I got some for her.”
    I could tell this registered. It was true, I did recognize him, and I did get some aspirin for his aunt. She had repaid me with a promise to be a matchmaker. She knew some girls in the countryside who would be good for me, she said. Hard workers. Simple needs. Knew how to boil water.
    The door