Show of Evil

Except for the panoramic view of the lake, the room was cold and sterile. Black, ultramodern furniture contrasted harshly with white carpeting and walls. The three large paintings on one wall were abstracts in various configurations of black and white. The place appeared to be spotless. Spotless except for City Council Chairman Delaney, who lay flat on his back, stark naked, staring blandly at the ceiling. A lot of blood had collected under the body and dried in a large, brown stain on the carpet. 'Where's Okie?' Vail asked.

'Other room. He's guessing he got it between seven and eight-thirty.'

'Who found him?' Stenner asked. 'Delaney was the key speaker at a banquet tonight. When he didn't show up or answer his phone by the end of dinner, somebody called the office. The doorman answered, told them he hadn't seen Delaney leave the place. He checked the parking deck to make sure Delaney's car was there - you can get to it without going through the lobby. It was. There was a lot of hemming and hawing until the meeting was over. A couple of the dignitaries came over, the night manager used a passkey, and they came in. Delaney'd taken the express to Goodbye City.'

'What time was that?' Stenner asked.

 'Eleven-oh-five.'

Stenner walked a little closer, leaned over, and looked down at the corpse. The right side of Delaney's face was scorched and his right eyebrow was singed off. Still leaning over, he looked back over his shoulder at Vail and Shock.

'Almost a contact shot, I'd say,' he remarked.

Shock nodded. 'Burned his eyebrow off and fried half his face. Couple of inches at best. Probably wasn't necessary. They're both insurance shots.'

'Anything happening in the bedroom?' Stenner asked.

Shock shrugged. 'Take a look.'

'Delaney doesn't look very surprised,' Vail said as Stenner walked into the other room.

'Maybe he was blinking when he got it,' Shock said.

'Probably knew who did him, wouldn't you say?'

'I'd say that's a pretty safe assumption. I mean, what the hell was he doing, anyway, traipsing around the living room with his unit hanging out?'

'Maybe his wife did him.'

'Or girlfriend?'

'Or boyfriend.'

'That, too.'

'I have a friend who says she's the only person in town that didn't have a reason to kill him.'

'You ever have a run-in with him, Marty?'

'Nah. He always sent Firestone to do his dirty work.'

'He's another one.'

'Maybe we can pin it on him.'

Shock laughed. 'I like the idea.'

'Eckling have a lot of boys working on this?'

'Half the force.'

'I'll bet he does,' Vail said. 'He can feel the heat already. This is going to give every politico in the city an enema.'

'Like maybe one of them'll be next?' Shock said, and snickered.

'Guilty conscience,' said Vail, and they both started to laugh.

'You two don't have much respect for the dead. After all, he was chairman of the city council, head of the finance committee, head of the city's Democratic Party…'

A short, dignified Japanese American with black, closely cut hair and tortoiseshell glasses entered from the bedroom. Oichi Okimoto, wearing a surgeon's paper robe and plastic boots and gloves, strode back into the living room. 'How're you, Martin?' he asked as he walked past.

'I'm not getting enough sleep lately,' Vail said.

'At least it's more comfortable than the landfill.'

Okimoto, at thirty-six was one of the best forensic scientists in the business, walked across the room, carefully moved a straight-back chair to a corner, and sat down on it backward, folding his arms over its back and leaning his chin on them. He perused the room without saying a word. Vail took out his cigarette pack and Okimoto said, without turning his head, 'Don't light that, please.'

'You taking samples of the air, Okie?' Vail asked.

'It annoys me.'

Vail put the cigarettes away and everybody stood around waiting for Okimoto to finish thinking. Three minutes crept by. Finally Okimoto got up and returned the chair.

'We're through, so you may as well go home,' he said to Vail. 'Except for that mess over there, the place is immaculate. Here's what I can tell you. There's no sign of forcible entry. Wet towels on the bathroom floor. Tuxedo's laid out on the bed. He's wearing a gold, waterproofed Rolex - not a knockoff - worth about ten K, and his wallet, credit cards, et cetera, plus three hundred and eighteen dollars in cash, are on the dresser.'

He looked back at the body.

'I think - think, okay - somebody he knew, somebody with a key, entered the apartment while he was in the shower. Delaney finishes, gets out, towels off, comes in here to get a drink from the wet bar over there in the corner. He thinks he's alone, so he doesn't bother to put anything on - if he had answered the door or heard somebody come in, he would have put on a robe or something. He gets his drink, turns around, and our mystery guest is standing about here, in the entrance to the living room. He gets in a conversation with this somebody - or maybe he realizes he's in trouble and he's pleading for his life - anyway, he puts the drink on the table, and as he turns around, the mystery guest plugs him twice. I'm fairly certain the first shot was the torso shot; we found a spent shell casing right here. Then our somebody walked over, probably straddled him, leaned down, and popped him in the forehead. There was another shell beside the head. Robbery obviously was not the motive. And I think the culprit was a woman.'

'Why?' Vail asked.

'Imprints in the carpet. High heel, not a spike. I would say a medium heel from the configuration. We've got plenty of photos and a wax cast of the heel prints. I don't think there'll be any surprises from the autopsy. Maybe some drugs in his blood, but I doubt it, no indication of illegal substances anywhere in the place. And his stomach's probably fairly empty; he was on his way to dinner.'

'Whoever shot him came here for that purpose,' Stenner said.

'How do you figure that?' Okimoto asked.

'Because he was naked, right?' Shock offered. 'If there had been any kind of conversation, he would have gone in the bedroom and put something on.'

'That's very good,' Okimoto said.

'If it went down the way you see it, Okie,' said Vail, 'the lady really must've hated his guts. Abel's right, she came here to do him.'

'It'll all be in the autopsy,' Okimoto said. 'By the way, I won't have anything on the landfill case until tomorrow, maybe the day after. The bodies are a real mess.'

He went down the hall towards the kitchen.

'Hell, Shock,' Vail said, 'all you have to do is find someone who hates him. According to my friend, that could be anybody in the county.'

'I have a thought,' Shock said, looking back at the body. 'He's running for re-election in the fall. Maybe he was getting some campaign photos made.'

'There you go, that's it,' Vail said. 'Hell, he's hung like a bull moose. Probably wanted to wrap up the women's vote.'

They both started to laugh.

'How about taxidermists, he could probably get them, too.'

'Yeah.' Vail stopped laughing long enough to agree. 'They could stuff it and name it after him.'

'Right. The Big prick,' Shock said.

They were laughing hard when Eckling came into the apartment. He stalked down the hall and entered the death room.

'What's so goddamn funny?' he snapped. 'One of the city's leaders is lying dead on the floor and you two think it's funny? I'm surprised at you, Captain.'

'Aw, c'mon, Eric, lay off him,' Vail said. 'You know how it is around a murder scene, it's nervous laughter.'

'I already know what you think of our councilmen,' Eckling said haughtily. 'I'll remind you they represent the people. They deserve respect.'