Hayes’s voice mail on Monday had delivered yet another dead
end. She’d come up empty after talking with Gladys Buckley. Again.
“Dead body on East Main, male, nineteen to twenty-five,
called in at five this morning. No ID. No wallet, tattoos, keys
or cash on him. He was in the gutter, dirty, like he was homeless, torn clothes that didn’t fit, long hair, unshaven. Empty
bottle about a foot away. Strange thing is, he didn’t smell, no
body odor or alcohol. No needle marks. His teeth were white,
straight. Buzz has him—I’m waiting on a tox screen, but I’m
certain it’s going to come out clean.”
Jacket on, and a bulging folder under his arm, Ramsey
leaned his shoulder against the pillar on the right side of
Mendholson’s partitioned space and said, “You’re thinking
the homeless thing was a setup.”
“Yeah. It was too perfectly staged.”
“Did you check out his fingernails?”
“Yeah. Pearly pink and manicured. No discoloration. No
grime. No broken edges. No match for prints, either. And
there’s nothing on missing persons.”
“Cause of death?”
“Still waiting on the official determination, but he’d been
stabbed.”
“I’m assuming he bled out where you found him?” Because
if not, Bill would have said so.
“Yeah.”
“So it wasn’t a dump.”
“Nope.”
“Who called it in?”
“A shopkeeper. Older guy who owns a bakery around the
corner. He was out walking around the block to get away from
the hot ovens for a minute—”