City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

life. Anyway, you’re avoiding my question. Here’s why I care about ‘our body.’ If somebody is trying to frame me for murder, then he might kill again once he learns that I’m in the clear. Find a way to point the finger at me more directly. In addition to not wanting another killing, I want to know who the hell is up to this and why. This girl was killed, dismembered, and arranged in new clothes after she bled out. Ever seen a crime like that in Phoenix?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Me, neither.”

When he next did the classic Don Hammons, withdrawing into silence, I went on. “When you picked me up the other night and took me to the murder scene, you said you wanted my help. I’ve tried to give it. She didn’t fall from the train. No blood on the tracks or the roadbed, which would have indicated she got chewed up by the wheels of the passenger cars. Too little blood around the body, telling us that she was killed and dismembered elsewhere, then dumped where we found her. No identification. And as I say, in death she was arranged, either to make a statement or because she was so despised by the killer. The wounds were severe but too precise to have been made by swinging a hatchet. They are consistent with a butcher’s tools, which were purchased before the murder by one Detective Frenchy Navarre. Who, last I knew, was king of vice cases. So why did he answer your phone just now? I’d say you’ve gotten pretty good value for your consultation so far.”

“Sure.” He swiveled and faced me, his back against the door. “Have you been following the Halloran trial? Your girl’s testimony sounded crazy as a hoot owl. Judge put a stop to it. Happy Jack got off.”

“Big surprise,” I said. “Don’t change the subject again. Can you get a fingerprint check on the business card without setting off alarms?”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Give me time.”

“What else do you know besides their daughter isn’t the dead girl?” I thumbed toward the hacienda.

“Doc Iverson did the postmortem at St. Joseph’s. He estimated she had been dead for less than eight hours. The body parts were removed with a sharp instrument, then sawed off at the bones, likely while she was nude. Very little blood was on the clothes, which appeared new, from a Los Angeles department store. No scuff marks on her shoes at all. New polish on her finger and toenails.”

“Raped?”

“Unlikely. No bruising or scratches. No skin under her nails. But she’d had sex within the past week or so. No signs of restraints such as ropes. Doc drew blood, and we’ll see if drugs or anything interesting turn up. Stomach contents were a ham sandwich and some chocolates. We fingerprinted her, but so far no hits. She wasn’t some roundheels with a prostitution bust in Arizona.”

“What about sending them off to the FBI?”

He shook his head. “There’s no appetite for going to that much trouble.”

“‘That much trouble?’ This is crazy. Murdered girl, no identification. Doesn’t anybody care?”

“Officially, she probably fell from the train,” Don said.

I shook my head in frustration. “Distinguishing marks?”

“She had a small cloverleaf birthmark on the inside of her left elbow.”

I fired another question: “Cause of death?”

He hesitated, lighting another cigarette.

“Blow to the temple. Makeup concealed it.”

I was surprised, but why should I have been?

“Like from a sap,” I said. “Like a cop did it. Falling from a train sure as hell didn’t cause that.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, getting paranoid.”

The image of the woman’s mouth, open in a scream, floated across my mind, something I would carry with me to the grave. I asked about it.

“Iverson said the mouth was likely propped open that way,” he said. “She wasn’t conscious when she was sawed apart.”

“Our killer is such a humanitarian. Why hasn’t this been publicly disclosed as a homicide? You should go to the press. The public might be able to help. Someone might know her.”

“Because the city commissioners don’t want another Winnie Ruth Judd scandal making Phoenix look bad.” He held up his hand. “Don’t start on me, wasn’t my decision, wasn’t the chief’s decision. The chamber of commerce doesn’t want the city’s reputation further tarnished when they’re rolling out the new ‘Valley of the Sun’ marketing campaign.”

“Sons of bitches.” Or more kindly: “You can always trace all devilment to a chamber of commerce.” Will Rogers wrote it on the front page of the newspaper, so it had to be true.

I preferred the old motto that had been bestowed on Phoenix: American Eden. But I supposed that wouldn’t attract tourists.

“There’s something else,” Don said. He paused. “She was pregnant. Doc estimated it was about six weeks.”

Before I could say that this was motive for murder, a man popped out of the groves thirty feet away. He was as big as a house, and his face was distinctive, with a long scar and jailhouse eyes that instantly lit on us. He had a revolver in one hand. With the other, he waved into the trees, and four other men stepped out and started our way.

Don swiveled forward and said, “I hope all that choir practice hasn’t made you a pacifist.”

“No.”

I had just enough time to take off my fedora and use it to conceal me removing the M1911 Colt automatic from its shoulder holster under my suit coat. One round was already in the chamber. I thumbed back the hammer. Don’s black .38 Detective Special was out, too, concealed between his leg and the inside of the car door.

By this time, the big man was beside my door, and his friends were converging.

“Out of the car!” he screamed. “We’re taking this!”

He waved his revolver upward.

That was his second mistake. His first was coming here at all.

I lowered my hat and fired. The heavy .45 caliber slug blew off his jaw, split open his scar, and kept going as the back of his head