Taking the Fifth(6)

Enraged, he lunged at me, bellowing with anger. “What are you doing here? I told you to get out!”

That must have been the first moment he realized we were in the room. I saw him charge toward me, but it was too late to make any evasive maneuver. We collided in midair with such force that it knocked the wind out of us both. We fell to the floor in a tangled heap. Riley made one futile grab for my neck, but he came up empty-handed when Al Lindstrom lifted him bodily into the air.

Al shoved Riley against a wall and held him there with his feet dangling several inches off the ground. We don’t call Al “Big Al” for nothing. His arms are thick as tree limbs, and he’s as strong as the proverbial ox. He was evidently one hell of a wrestler in his youth. Even now he’s no slouch.

As soon as I was sure Riley was permanently out of commission, I reached under the bed far enough to lift the pillowcase and uncover the package. It was about the size of an ordinary brick, wrapped in clear plastic, and carefully taped shut.

I’ve never worked Narcotics, but I’ve seen enough stuff to recognize drugs when I see them. It looked like cocaine, deadly, compact, powdery cocaine. It could have been powdered sugar, but people don’t generally hide powdered sugar in their pillows. And they don’t generally die over it either.

Riley found his voice again, sputtering over Al’s restraining arm. “Don’t you touch anything, you bastard. You’ve got no right to be here. Get out, goddamn it! Out!”

Studying the package, I ignored Riley’s outburst. “Looks like coke to me,” I said to Al.

The guys from the mortuary stood watching us stupidly, as if we were a traveling vaudeville show there for no other reason than their personal entertainment and benefit.

“Hey, Roger,” one whined to the other. “Are we moving this guy or not?”

“Not!” I barked. “You don’t touch him or anything in this room until I talk to the medical examiner’s office.”

At that Tom Riley renewed his struggle, kicking and fighting to get free of Al Lindstrom’s viselike grip. “You do as you were told,” he roared at the driver. “The medical examiner already knows about it.”

I walked over to where Al held Riley with his back to the wall, chinning him effortlessly on one solid forearm.

“Doc Baker? How does he know about it?” I demanded.

“I called him. Almost an hour ago. As soon as I found the body.”

“Why isn’t he here, then?” It was hard to believe the medical examiner’s office was backed up that far. Surely they could have dispatched someone in less than an hour.

“Because he doesn’t have to be.” Riley sounded calmer now, almost rational.

“Since when is Doc Baker too good to check out an OD?”

Riley stared at me incredulously. “You think that’s what it is? An overdose?”

I answered his question with one of my own. “Don’t you? When we find a dead man with half a pound of cocaine hidden in his pillowcase, we can usually draw some pretty logical conclusions.”

Something strange happened to Tom Riley’s face then. It contorted suddenly. At first I thought he was going to burst into tears.

I was wrong. Instead he began laughing, a strangled, air-gulping, rib-breaking, all-consuming laugh.

As I stood in that stuffy, confining bedroom with a man dead on the bed behind me, Tom Riley’s eerie, unnatural laughter made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

At last he grew quieter and regained enough composure so he could talk. “Jon didn’t OD,” he declared firmly.

“He didn’t? What did he die of, then?” I demanded.

“AIDS.”

Tom Riley’s single-word answer crackled through the silent room like heat lightning in a tinder-dry forest. Al Lindstrom’s stranglehold collapsed and Tom Riley, a limp, boneless rag doll, slipped silently to the floor.

“AIDS! Holy shit!” Big Al muttered, a stricken expression on his face.

Tom Riley took one look at Big Al’s face and began to laugh again.

Al Lindstrom didn’t think it was funny.

I didn’t either.





CHAPTER 3




DOC BAKER’S MOOD HADN’T IMPROVED any by the time I got him on the phone. Over his secretary’s strenuous protests, I had insisted that he be called away from an autopsy-in-progress.

“Beaumont, you jerk, what did you say the name was?”

“Thomas. Jonathan Thomas.”

“Sure. His nurse called in earlier this morning. I already had the notice from the attending physician. My people told Riley to go ahead and have them move the body.”

“Just like that? Without bothering to send somebody over? Without checking?”