Chapter 17

Derrick Deal was distinctly deceased; the Maplewood cop hadn't been lying when he said he looked like he'd been hit with a shovel. The cop played a flashlight over Deal's face. The left side of his forehead and left eye socket had been crushed, and another indentation followed the line of his eyebrows across the right side of his face. Deal's right eyebrow looked like a stepped-on millipede, while his left one was gone entirely.

"Wasn't a shovel, though," Lucas said, looking at the body. "Looks like he was hit with a chair."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I once went to a killing where this guy hit his old lady with a kitchen chair. He said he thought it was gonna break, like they do in the movies. He might as well of hit her with a pipe. Her face looked just like this." He pointed at the dent leading out the right side of Deal's face. "I'll bet you it was an old wooden chair. The other guy swung it by the back, just like in the movies, and hit him in the face with the edge of the seat. One of the legs busted his brow ridge. You might find a mark from the other leg on his neck, or his chest."

"I'll tell the ME," the cop said. "I never seen a chair job."

Lucas stood around the melancholy scene until the ME got there, and convinced a crime-scene guy to check Deal's pockets. They found a wallet with eight dollars, two dollars and eleven cents in change, a withdrawal slip for twenty-five dollars from an ATM, and a small black-leather card case. The case had a dozen cards from Brown's Hotel.

"No address book?" Lucas asked.

"I don't find one," the crime-scene cop said.

Lucas took a last, pensive look at the dead man's crushed face, got in his car, and started toward Deal's town house.

Deal had known something. Lucas had seen it in his face when he went to talk with him, but hadn't known what Deal was lying about. After Lucas left him in the hotel, Deal probably had gone out looking for a little schmear. A few bucks to meet the rent, or whatever needed meeting. But it wasn't nice to blackmail a killer, who had nothing to lose But now they had a connection. Deal had known the killer, or had known how to make a connection to get to him. They weren't three steps away anymore. One step, and they'd have him.

The Maplewood cops had already opened Deal's town house. The place was a melancholy collection of small cubicles, an efficient, uninflected space for sleeping, eating, and watching television. He had no computer; nor could they find an address book or Rolodex. There had to be one, unless the killer had taken it.

Lucas lingered at the house until he was sure there was no more to find, then headed for Browns Hotel. On the way, he called the hospital. They'd finished with Marcy, Rose Marie told him, but she wasn't out of the operating room yet. They were rigging her up for intensive care.

"The doc thinks she's gonna make it," Rose Marie said. "They're gonna keep her under for a while, though. They don't want her popping anything loose."

A knot in Lucas's neck loosened a notch. "Good. As long as there's no heart involvement."

"It was lower than that, lower than what we heard. The slug went in below her breast at an outward angle, so it came out almost on her side. She must've been turning sideways when it hit her."

"What about the slug in the railing? Have they ID'd it yet?"

"They got it, but it's wrecked. We won't be able to ID the gun. They can say it's a. 44 Magnum jacketed hollowpoint."

"Then it's a different gun than the Bloomington gun," Lucas said. "And if it was a murder-suicide, why'd they bother to hide the big one?"

At Brown's, the good-looking black woman was working behind the reception desk. When she saw Lucas come in, she said a word to the woman working with her and slipped out. Lucas glanced at her name tag and remembered: India. She said, "We heard about Derrick. Is it because you talked with him?"

"I don't know," Lucas said. "But I need to look at his desk. I can get a search warrant, or we can just go look."

"Can I ask the manager this time?"

"If you have to. But I want to go down and stand by Derrick's cubicle while you ask," Lucas said.

"I'll go ask," she said. And "I'm sorry, but my job"

"Sure."

Lucas went down to Deal's office space. Another man was sitting in a cubicle, three down from Deal's, working with an old mechanical adding machine. He glanced at Lucas and said, "Can I help you?"

"Waiting for the manager."

"You the police?"

"Yup."

The man leaned back from his chair. He was Deal's age, and like

Deal, a little heavy, balding, with wiry black hair on his arms. He locked his hands behind his head and said, "I don't know exactly what he was up to, but he seemed a little shady. He always had get-rich-quick deals."

"You know anybody who bit?" Lucas asked.

"No, not around here. He did not exactly inspire confidence."

"He was not that bad a guy, though."

"Hey, some of the best guys I know sell used cars. They've all got big deals cooking somewhere. I like them, but I'd never put my money with them."

The outer door opened, and a tall man in a dark blue suit came through, trailed by India. The man had a beaked nose, close-set water-green eyes, and a blacktoo blackwidows peak. He resembled Prince Philip just a little, and must've known it, because he had a red silk handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket. He looked Lucas up and down, and before the manager had a chance to open his mouth, Lucas didn't like him.

"You're the police?" As if he doubted it. "Do you have identification?" He had a perfect, round, baritone English voice.

"Yeah, but you usually don't want to flash the old buzzer in a high-class joint like this," Lucas said, looking around the room, as if the ceiling tiles might turn hostile. India's eyes cut sideways at him, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Lucas flipped open his ID, held it in front of the manager's eyes, and said, "We can lay some paper on you if you want. Otherwise, I'll just take a quick gander at Derrick's desk."

"Well, I don't think you need a search warrant. We're all anxious to help find out what happened with Derrick," the manager said. He tilted his head back, the better to peer down his nose. "He'd reformed, you know. He was doing so well."

Lucas shrugged. "So maybeit was an accident."

The manager lifted an eyebrow, just one. "We heard he was found locked in a car trunk, with his face smashed in."

Lucas nodded judiciously. "Maybe you're right. Probably wasn't an accident. I never thought so, myself." He was getting tired of it. "So I can look around?"

"I'd like to leave a staff member with you." Prince Philip tipped his head at India.

"Sure no problem."

When he was gone, India giggled and asked, "Where'd you get that accent?"

"Where'd he get his?" Lucas asked as they walked down to Deal's desk.

"Same place as Cary Grant."

"Really? Cary Grant?"

"They were both born in Bristol. England."

"Yeah?" He'd spotted an old-fashioned plastic Rolodex on Deal's desk. "And this"he touched the Rolodex"is what I've been looking for."

He found a name, two-thirds of the way through the Rolodex. He checked it twice: Terrance Bloom, He checked the printed party list to confirm it, then called Lester at Homicide.

"I'm looking at Derrick Deal's Rolodex and I find the name Terrance Bloom, and Bloom is on the party list."

"Give me the address and phone number," Lester said.

Lucas read them off the Rolodex, and Lester, rattling on some computer keys, said, "Hang on a sec. I'm just bringing the screen up" Then: "Yup, that's him."

"We gotta get on him," Lucas said. "This could be something."

"Hang on, hang on" Lucas hung on for another moment, listening to the computer keys at the other end of the line, then Lester again: "He's not on Lansing's phone list."