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still-made bed?”
    Mackey closed his eyes and answered with them shut. ”I asked her, ‘Had you cleaned the room?’ She replied, ‘No, the place hadn’t been used, so I moved on to 302.’”
    Murphy was staring at me. I spoke. ”Can you find out if she touched anything in here today?”
    Mackey looked at Murphy. Murphy nodded, and Mackey was off.
    ”Good cop,” I said.
    ”He’ll be better when he can repeat an exchange without having to keep his eyes shut. What’s up?”
    I sighed. ”Maybe nothing, but when we lived together, he always kept the toilet kit zipped up.” Murphy looked at it. ”When I was in the army, I did too. When I got home, I didn’t bother.”
    ”Like I said, maybe nothing.”
    He turned and went back into the main room. I leaned over the tub and looked up at the vent above the shower. There were some bright nicks around the screws holding it. I decided I would ask the hotel staff about recent maintenance myself.
    We carefully opened drawers and looked under the bed. Mackey returned to report that the maid never even entered 304 that morning. Cross and Keller provided us with the names and addresses of the clerks and bellhops on duty. Cross also reported that Al had made the reservation at the Midtown eleven days earlier and had checked in at 11:30 a.m., Monday, the 22nd. The day before yesterday. He had stayed there Monday night, but apparently not Tuesday night. No one had seen him enter or leave on Tuesday. He had placed two long distance calls to Pittsburgh, presumably home and office, and two local calls, me and presumably a customer, early Tuesday morning.
    ”Was my message to him still in the box?” I asked.
    ”Yes.” Cross handed it to Murphy. He glanced at it and gave it back to her.
    Murphy told Mackey to lock and seal the room, Cross remaining to go through it with the lab technicians she had called from the desk.
    ”C’mon,” Murphy said to me. It seemed to be one of his favorite phrases. We walked back through the lobby to his car.
     
    ”Unless the lab comes up with something, this one’s going down as what it appears to be.”
    We were stopped at a light. I chose my answering words carefully, the autopsy I had just witnessed still vivid in my mind.
    ”I still don’t see it that way, Lieutenant. Al wasn’t
    gay-”
    ”Maybe he’d gotten a little drunk.” The light changed and we eased forward in the traffic that is a constant of Boston driving during all daylight hours. ”He gets a little drunk, some guys talk about having a good time, he thinks combat zone bar or hookers, realizes the real scene a little too late. Maybe he gets insulting and somebody gets mad.”
    ”First, Al was too smart and experienced not to recognize something like that. Second—” I was interrupted by Murphy’s horn as a bread truck tried to slam us broadside. I started over. ”Second, what was done to him is pretty extreme for somebody getting mad.”
    Murphy swung onto Boylston Street, bobbing his head. ”Agreed. So what’s your view of it?”
    ”I think he was tortured, the rest was red herring.” Murphy shot me a glance and nearly creamed a kid on a moped. ”Goddamned things shouldn’t be allowed in the city!” He snorted once. ”You got any idea why a salesman for some outtatown steel outfit would be tortured?”
    ”None,” I said, omitting Al’s gambling remark.
    We circumnavigated the Public Garden as we talked about notifying Al’s wife. Murphy gladly let me take that.
    The lieutenant tinned down Charles Street to drop me off at my apartment. As we were pulling to a stop, he said, ”Could it have anything to do with his left pinkie being broken?”
    ”His pinkie?” I said.
    ”Yeah,” he said, giving a false, conspiratorial smile, ”you know. The hand you were trying to look at when you bumped me with your indignation routine.”
    ”I don’t know.”
    The smile faded. ”You just told me a lie, mister. One more lie in a murder investigation, and your