Read Nocturnal for Free Online

head toward the bagged corpse. “Something interesting in there?”
    Metz looked at her for a few moments, as if he was thinking of saying something but then decided against it. He spoke a fraction of a second before the stare would have become uncomfortable.
    “Maybe,” he said. “We shall see. A case like this … it’s delicate. Maybe I’ll tell you about it. Maybe soon.”
    “When you do, boss man, I’m all ears.”
    “Oh, I saw your boyfriend while I was out. How is Bryan these days?”
    Robin’s smile faded. “Bryan and I broke up.”
    Metz’s eyes saddened. “Recently?”
    “About six months ago.”
    He looked at her, then looked away. This time it
was
uncomfortable. “Yes. You’ve told me about this before. Now I remember.”
    Not knowing what else to do, Robin just nodded. Metz rolled the body into the morgue one slow step at a time. Even at his age, he liked to handle everything himself.
    It was hard to watch him forget things. Had to be murder for him — aman whose life and identity rested squarely on his intelligence — to see the first signs of his memory slipping away.
    Robin walked through the receiving area where bodies were declothed, weighed and photographed. She entered the offices, which consisted of a dozen gray cubicles that made the old yellow carpet look brighter by contrast. Printouts and paper clippings were tacked up to the cubicles’ fabric, showing news coverage of various murders or high-profile suicides. Any photo that showed someone from the examiner’s office in action immediately went up as a trophy.
    She put her helmet and jacket in her cubicle, then retied her long ponytail as she looked at the chalkboard. That was how the San Francisco ME Office tracked incoming bodies and assignments — not on computers, but on a three-foot-wide, six-foot-high green chalkboard. The board was divided into three-by-three sections that slid up or down, one under the other. The top board listed last night’s work; ten names scrawled in chalk, all reading the time of arrival, the examiner assigned to the body, and “NC” for
natural causes
.
    The board on the bottom was today’s work, already four lines deep. Two of those listed
NC
, while the other two listed a question mark — a question mark meant a probable homicide.
    She saw the line on the bottom with Metz’s name in the “assigned” column. The stiff’s name was
Paul Maloney
.
    Robin let out a long, slow whistle. Father Paul Maloney. That was high-profile. Was that why Metz had gone on the pickup? That made sense. And yet, she felt like he’d wanted to tell her something else, something he’d ultimately decided she wasn’t ready for yet. What that might be, she didn’t know.
    Whatever it was, it would have to wait, because according to the board
Singleton, John, NC
and
Quarry, Michelle, ?
were waiting for her.

Pookie’s Sister
    P ookie parked the Buick on Union Street, next to Washington Square Park. As he got out, his hands did their automatic four-pat — a pat on the left pants pocket for his car keys, the right pants pocket for his cell, left breast for his gun, and rear-right pants pocket for his wallet. Everything was in its place.
    Bryan was leaning on the Buick’s hood, left hand pressed against the chipped brown paint.
    “Bri-Bri, you okay?”
    Bryan shrugged. “Might be coming down with something.”
    That would be the day. “Dude, you never get sick.”
    Bryan looked up. Beneath his shaggy, dark-red hair, his face looked a bit pale. “You don’t feel anything, Pooks?”
    “Other than guilt at hogging most of the universe’s available supply of awesome, no. I’m fine. You think you caught something at the Maloney site?”
    “Maybe,” Bryan said.
    Even if Bryan had caught something, they’d been there only a few hours ago. Flu didn’t set in that fast. Maybe Bryan was just tired. Most days, the guy hid in his darkened apartment like some nocturnal creature. Three day shifts in a row had probably