“He’s probably just a renter,” I said.

“Landlord’s a geologist?” Hawk said.

Above the doorbell button beside the right-hand door was a small hand-lettered card that said DeRosast.McDermott. I rang. No one answered. I rang again. Same thing. Hawk reached over and rang the doorbell on the left-hand door. Nobody answered. I looked through the peephole the wrong way, like I always did, and I found that I couldn’t see anything in that direction. Like I always did. I tried the door. It was locked. Hawk nodded and walked back across the street to the Jaguar and opened the trunk, took out a big red gym bag, and came back across the street with it. He set it down on the steps and took out a flat bar and handed it to me.

“Why do you have one if you can’t use it?” I said.

“I use it when I haven’t got an Irish-American laborer handy.”

I took the flat bar and got it wedged in against the doorjamb where the lock tongue would be and heaved and there was some doorjamb splintering and then the bolt tore loose and the door popped free. I put the flat bar back in the red gym bag and handed it to Hawk.

“Tote that bale,” I said.

He took it back to the Jaguar. No one in the neighborhood seemed interested that I had just performed the B part of a B and E. I pushed the door open. The lock I had jimmied was the kind that locked behind you when you went out. The house was silent. And hot. And stuffy. Lights were on in the hallway. I smelled a bad smell. Hawk came in behind me from his bale-toting chores. I could hear him breathe in.

“Whoops,” Hawk said.

I nodded and, breathing through my mouth, started through the front hall toward what was probably the living room. I knew what I would find. Hawk walked beside me. Inside the living room archway we both stopped.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Un-huh,” Hawk said.

The distorted remains of a man and woman lay together on the floor, their bodies disfigured by the slow flame of decay. The woman sprawled diagonally across the man. Someone had shot them many times, probably with an automatic weapon, maybe more than one. They had, in the process, chopped the room up pretty good. Pieces of chair backs, scraps of upholstery, bits of lamp shade, shards of glass, and fragments of plastic, and plaster, and human tissue clung to the walls. The blood covered the floor, black by now, and hardened like a vast scab. Insects had found them both. The room was very hot and flies buzzed thickly in the stinking air.

I had seen it before, but I never liked it. And this was worse than most. Except that I could hear him breathing through his mouth, Hawk showed no sign that it bothered him. For all that showed on his face, he could have been looking at a lawn tractor.

“DeRosa?” he said.

“I assume so,” I said. “And maybe McDermott as well.”

Hawk walked over to the corpses and looked down at them.

“Hard to be sure,” Hawk said. “McDermott the girlfriend?”

“I dunno. It’s the other name on the doorbell.”

“People dying just after you talk to them or just before,” Hawk said. “Somebody think you closing in?”

“I guess so,” I said. “Wish I had their confidence.”

“We pretty clear on what happened to these folks,” Hawk said. “You think Amy Peters a suicide?”

“No.”

“You believe Brink Tyler an accident victim?”

“No.”

Hawk was still staring down at the bodies. He shook his head a little to dispel a fly.

“They shot these people to pieces,” Hawk said. “I bet they got fifteen, twenty rounds apiece in them.”

“Had to make some noise,” I said.

“Anybody heard it, they ignored it,” Hawk said. “These people been here awhile.”

I looked around the living room. The windows were shut and locked. There was a big air-conditioning unit in a side window. I looked at it. It was turned off.

“When’s the last time it was cool?” I said.

Hawk shrugged.

“Don’t do weather,” he said.

We went through the house, living room and kitchen on the first floor. Two bedrooms and a bath on the second. The smell thickened the air in every room. All the windows were closed and locked. The air conditioner in the second-floor bedroom was shut off, too. The back door was locked. In the drawer of the front hall table we found a 9mm Colt, with a round jacked up into the chamber.

“Man locked everything,” Hawk said. “Yep. No windows open, even if it be cool when he shut off the AC, most people like a little ventilation in the summer.”

“It’s not a bad neighborhood,” I said. “But he was being pretty careful. Gun in the front hall. Round in the chamber.”

Hawk nodded. “He knew them,” Hawk said.

“Seems like it,” I said.

“He would have looked through the peephole,” I said. “And he would have unlocked the door when he saw them. The hall gun is still in the drawer. He wasn’t afraid of them.”

“And he should have been,” Hawk said. “You figure the broad got shot because she was here?”

“Could be. Or it could be she was part of the whole deal. Whatever the whole deal was. Or it could be they wanted to kill her, and he had the misfortune to be on hand.”

“Going to call the cops?” Hawk said.

“Guess we got to.”

“We could just close the door and walk away.”

“Your fingerprints in the system?” I said.

“‘Course,” Hawk said.

“Mine too.”

“So give them a call,” Hawk said.

CHAPTER FORTY

“We’ll let the B and E slide,” Quirk said. “But corpses keep showing up in your area, we might cite you for littering.”

We were outside, away from the smell, leaning on the fender of Quirk’s car. It was about six hours since we’d found the bodies. The prowl car guys had arrived first and questioned us and told us to stick around. Some District 6 detectives came and asked us questions and told us to stick around. Crime scene people asked us questions and told us the detectives wanted us to stick around. Belson showed up after a while and asked us questions and told us to stick around and wait for Quirk. An hour and a half ago Quirk had ambled in and told us to stick around until he was through.

“Anyone know the identity of the woman?” I said.

“Yeah, we talked with some neighbors. Name was Margaret McDermott. She was DeRosa’s girlfriend. Live-in. Been with him six, eight years,” Quirk said.

He was looking at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him.

“You bother me,” Quirk said. “I know you wouldn’t have aced these two people, then come back a week later and called us.”

Hawk smiled some more.

“And I know that when you’re with Snoop Doggy Dogg here, you may not be on the up-and-up, but you’re probably not illegal.”

Hawk’s smile seemed almost sweet as he listened to Quirk.

“On the other hand,” Quirk said, “I hate to come upon a double homicide and find you lingering about and give you a bye.”

I said, “I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it, Captain.”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t, too,” Quirk said. “But not because you say so.”

“My word is my bond,” I said.

“I don’t know what the connection is between you two clowns, but I know you’d cover for him.”

“White guilt,” I said. “My ancestors might have owned slaves.”

“Yo‘ ancestors being bog-trotting paddies didn’t have the money to own no slaves,” Hawk said.

I looked at him sadly. “You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “It’s a white thing.”

“Isn’t this fun,” Quirk said. “Lemme get the other cops over here, give them a chance to listen.”

I said, “We’re just working on our material, Captain.”

“And it’s really enjoyable,” Quirk said. “Oddly enough there’s no warrants out on Hawk.”

“You sure?” Hawk said.

“I had it checked.”

“Embarrassing,” Hawk said.

“You got anything you can tell me about this thing?” Quirk said.

“Same as I tole the other six cops,” Hawk said. “I just along try to keep him from hurting himself.”