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said.
    “How?”
    “The work some of those guys do is as individual as signing their name, but it would take a discouraging amount of legwork to track down which one just by this one pair of pants.”
    “There must be hundreds.”
    “More. It depends how exclusive the tailor is. The really good ones keep detailed records. If some bird went to the trouble of cutting off labels then chances are good it would have led to this guy’s name.”
    “What about the shoes?”
    I lifted a palm toward the deceased. “It’s your turn. Go ahead.”
    He wasn’t pleased, but to give him credit, he went back to the leg that still had an attached foot, and somehow removed the shoe.
    “Marnucci and Sons,” he read from the inside. “Manhattan.”
    I’d heard of them. “Marnucci’s is the cream of the footwear crop. Not a lot of people can afford that kind of stuff. You hear of any rich guys around here going missing seven years ago?”
    “No. That would have been in the papers.”
    “You never know, maybe a family wants to keep it quiet that someone knocked off Uncle Moneybags and put out that he took a trip. Instead he winds up here. We might learn something if Marnucci keeps records going back that far. Be glad the killer overlooked the shoes.”
    “I am inclined to think this fellow met with foul play, but what reason have you for that conclusion?”
    “Cleaned out pockets, no labels, broken ribs—”
    “That might have been caused by the weight of the earth on top of the body,” he pointed out.
    “I don’t think that would account for the broken arm and leg bones.” Those had been only held together by the remaining flesh. “They’re old breaks, not new ones caused from our digging. We’ve been too careful.”
    “Hm.”
    “Check the position of the breaks; they’re close to the joints. Bones are thicker there. It’s more likely for a bone to snap here”—I pointed to the middle part of my lower arm—“than here.” I indicated a spot just below my elbow. “I’m thinking someone beat the hell out of this guy before they killed him.”
    “Or he suffered a fall.”
    “Yeah, onto a bullet. There’s two holes in the head.” Barrett had dug it out, but I’d carried it up to the tarp. “The one in his temple is this big, and the one in the back you don’t want to know about. Entry and exit wounds were made by a slug of no small caliber.”
    “Good God.”
    “Someone aimed the gun here—” I put a finger an inch above my right eyebrow, pointing down toward the back of my head.
    “He might have shot himself.”
    “If he did, then he aimed it funny. A suicide is more likely to put the gun muzzle on the side at a right angle, pointing upward like this. If the bullet comes out it would be through the opposite temple or the top of his head. I’m not saying that he couldn’t have aimed it funny because of the broken arms, but a killer standing over him makes more sense.”
    “You are familiar with this sort of thing.”
    I turned away and spat again so he couldn’t see my face. My familiarity with how a suicide puts a bullet through his skull was not something of which I was proud.
    “We can look for this this cobbler and hope he can remember something helpful,” said Barrett. “Rather poor odds, I should think.”
    “It leads to Manhattan, but there’s a better trail to follow.”
    “Which would be?”
    I hooked a thumb at the pit. “Who did the original tearing down and carting away seven years ago?”
    “The same ones I rented the equipment from: Stannard Construction.”
    “Who had access to this area then?”
    “The household and whoever worked for Stannard. No one else was allowed through the gate. Mr. Mayfair diligently kept out the curious.”
    “Who in the household would have a gun and a violent grudge against a man in those kind of shoes?”
    “None that I know of.”
    “So we check the construction company and find out a thing or three about what they do under the