“You wouldn’t be talking about Chet Barber, would you?” “Yeah. You know him?”
“Yeah, I do. When I first moved to town I rented a place
two doors down from Chet’s place. He used to give me dayold bread in exchange for me keeping an eye on his place.
He’s a good guy. The neighborhood watchdog and do-gooder.” “I thought I remembered that you’d lived down there. Any
thoughts on what I’m looking at?”
“Besides the obvious, a mediocre murder cover-up? A pisspoor attempt at losing a body?”
“With the ocean ten miles away, why dump a body on a
city street?”
“Could be someone from the docks who wanted to point
suspicion away from him. You know anytime something turns
up in the water, the first place we look is the fishing docks.” Gomez and Anderson, two middle-aged detectives, walked
past. “Night,” they called.
“Night,” Ramsey and Mendholson said in unison. Ramsey
straightened. “If your vic was in homeless garb as a coverup why was he on the street, dressed that way, before he was
dead?”
“Not sure.”
“Any indication that he was from around here?” “If he is, he doesn’t spend much time on the water. His
skin’s spa soft and white as a baby’s butt.”
“You got a picture?”
Bill handed it over.
“I’ll head down there and see if I can get someone to talk
to me.”
“Thanks, man.” Bill was already studying notes in front
of him, his glasses perched on his nose.
“No problem.” Pulling his keys from his pocket, Ramsey
held his file against his body with his elbow and made his
way toward the elevator. Wednesday night and he’d already
worked an almost forty-hour week.
“Hey, Miller, I was just coming to see you. I’ve got the
mock-up you wanted on that Jack Colton guy,” Kim Pershing