Conspiracy Theory(110)

“It’s Mr. Demarkian,” he said. “The commissioner’s friend.”

Gregor had no way of knowing if that was being said sarcastically or not. He decided not to worry about it. “How do you do?” he said, nodding as well to the other plainclothesman, who had turned around when he heard Gregor and his partner talking. “I don’t mean to get in your way. I was just wondering how you knew this was Steve Bridge.”

The first plainclothesman shrugged. “I don’t guess we do, absolutely, just yet. We’ll have to take the body in for identification and DNA samples and all the rest of it. But we’ve had a heads-up on him for days—”

“This complete asshole of an FBI guy lost contact with his own partner and didn’t call the disappearance in for days,” the other plainclothesman said. “Can you believe it? I mean, who in Christ’s name—”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” the first plainclothesman said. “You know how I feel about taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Christ,” the second plainclothesman said. “You’ve got no idea what a pain in the ass you’ve gotten to be since you got born-again.”

Gregor cleared his throat. “Steve Bridge,” he said, directing their attention back to the problem at hand. “How did you find him? Who found him?”

“We don’t know,” the first plainclothesman said. “The precinct got an anonymous call about, maybe, two hours ago. Body in the vacant lot. You could smell the stench for blocks. That kind of thing. They didn’t think anything of it, because you couldn’t smell the stench for blocks—”

“That’s because of the cold,” the second plainclothesman said. “The damned thing has been out here refrigerated for however long it’s been. A couple of weeks. But you know what it’s been like. There hasn’t been a day with temps over thirty-five since October.”

“Yeah, well,” the first plainclothesman said, “that only does so much. It’s not like he was frozen. That would have been different. But the local precinct sent somebody out, just in case. And he walks in here and finds this.”

Gregor nodded. “I’m surprised he wasn’t visible from the sidewalk.”

“Too much in the way of shrubbery,” the first plainclothesman said, “and then there’s all the garbage around here. If people saw anything, they probably thought some old bum had come and ditched his clothes.”

“Then I’m surprised some kid hasn’t run in here and discovered this before now,” Gregor said. “Kids play in vacant lots, don’t they? They did when I was growing up.”

The first plainclothesman shrugged. “Maybe that was the cold too. Maybe it’s been too cold to play outside. I don’t know. Maybe there aren’t that many kids on this block.”

Gregor looked around. A small crowd had gathered, inevitably, on the road and on the far sidewalk from the place where all the vehicles were parked. It seemed to consist almost entirely of women, old ones, young ones, middle-aged ones, all wrapped up in heavy woolen coats and scarves and gloves. There were no children that he could see. He turned back to the body.

“So your man got here and found the body and called in for help. Then what?”

“Then the usual,” the first plainclothesman said.

“Think of it as escalation,” the second plainclothesman said. “First the uniforms got here, and the vehicles, and the ambulance, and then they called us in. One of the uniforms thought he recognized him. Although how anybody could do that is beyond me.” He looked down at the body and shuddered. “Jesus Christ, but you see bad things on this job.”

“How about cause of death?” Gregor asked. “Or is it too early to tell? Have you checked the body at all?”

“He’s got a bullet hole in the side of his head,” the second plainclothesman said. “If you went around to this side, you can see it. Small hole. We’re talking a rifle, I’d guess, maybe fired from some distance away. But you can see it. Come and look.”

Gregor did come and look, very carefully, not getting off the plank. It was true. The bullet hole was clearly there, and it just as clearly could not have been anything else, but it was small. He looked up and around. There were buildings on every side, some of them close. The only really open space was the vacant lot itself, and the short stretch of sidewalk that separated it from the road.

“You’re going to have to do a door-to-door around here,” he said. “Especially if forensics tells you what you’re expecting to hear, and the shot was fired at a distance. You’d think somebody would have heard something. Even if it took place at night.”