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stairs.
    His friend sprawled a couple of feet from the stairway. A thin line of blood ran from the lower corner of his mouth to form a small pool on the concrete floor. Two teeth lay just past the blood. The reason for the whiskey odor was obvious, a wide dark stain on the concrete next to Roscoe, with chunks, splinters, and flakes of glass scattered through the puddle and beyond. Roscoe’s left hand lay across the capped bottle neck at the edge of the stain, as if his last thought had been to try to get just one more drink out of life. Brun squatted, felt at the wrist, then dropped the doughy hand and stood, clutching at his chest. Shaking fingers pulled a little metal pillbox from his shirt pocket; he extracted a small green tablet, slipped it under his tongue, then breathed slowly, deeply. Pain receded, another stay of execution. The old barber trudged up the stairs and outside, back along Woodlawn to Oakwood, then out to Venice Boulevard and into the Venice Police Station, a block down from his barber shop.
    ***
    Brun sat on the gray twill couch in Roscoe’s living room, taking care to avoid the spring that poked through the fabric of the middle section. A uniformed cop stood beside him. At the far end of the couch, a detective in street clothes sat, taking notes as Brun told his story. The coroner had come and gone, attendants had removed the body, and the cops had been talking to Brun for nearly an hour. Finally, the detective, a slim man in his forties, with a sand-colored crew cut and a mouth like a gash, shut his notebook. “Thanks, Mr. Campbell. I appreciate your help.”
    “But you don’t believe what I said.”
    The two cops looked a question at him.
    “I mean about maybe it wasn’t any accident. Roscoe liked a shot or two after work, but he never got himself falling-down drunk, ‘least not that I ever saw, and I’ve known him pretty darned good for fifty years now. These no-good kids around here, them Beats, they ain’t got a pot to piss in. Maybe they came in to rob him, and he wouldn’t give them nothing. He was just telling me last week—”
    The detective held up a hand. “We’re going to get an autopsy, Mr. Campbell. You know, have doctors examine him. They’ll look for anything suspicious, and check to see how much alcohol he had in his stomach and his blood. But there is something you ought to think about. If somebody really did give your friend a push down the stairs, who would be Suspect Number One?”
    “Oh, sure. And then I walked right over to the station and reported it.”
    The younger cop shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first guy did that, figured it’d take the heat offa him.”
    “Tell you what, Mr. Campbell.” The older officer’s voice softened. “I’m sorry about your friend, and I know you’re upset. Just give us a little time. Like I said, we’re going to do the autopsy, check for fingerprints in the house and on the pieces of glass, look for anything out of the way. Maybe it’ll turn out he had a seizure, say, or a stroke. When we’re done, I’ll give you a call and tell you what we found. How’s that sound?”
    Brun snorted. “Great, except I ain’t got a phone.”
    “All right. Come by the station a week from now. Maybe we’d even have something by Friday.” He took a business card from his pocket and gave it to Brun. “Detective Bob Magnus. Just ask for me, and they’ll get me out to talk to you.”
    Brun nodded. “I appreciate that.”
    “No trouble. Can we give you a lift home?”
    The old barber shook his head. “Thanks, I’ll walk.”

Chapter Four
    Wednesday, April 4
Morning
    Dr. Brooks Gervais slipped his stethoscope into the pocket of his white jacket, then sighed. “Brun…”
    Looks like a man with bad hemorrhoids, sitting on a slab of cold concrete, Brun thought. “Time for the lecture, huh, Doc? What’s the blood pressure this time?”
    Gervais shook his head. “It’s been worse. But one-seventy-two over a hundred’s not