Darker Than Night Read Free Page A

he said, glancing around, “yet this place looks like a roach haven.”
    â€œThe building’s gonna be rehabbed, so the rent’s cheap. Anyway, I’ve hired a decorator.”
    â€œJohnnie Walker?”
    â€œUh-uh. Can’t afford him.”
    â€œGood fortune might change all that. Might throw you a lifeline of money and regained self-respect.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œI’m here.”
    â€œYou said it was a roach haven.”
    Â 
    â€œIt’s good to know you’re still a smart-ass,” Renz said. “You’re not completely broken.”
    Quinn watched him settle into the worn-out wing chair across from the worn-out sofa. Renz made a steeple with his fingers, almost as if he were about to pray, a characteristic gesture Quinn recalled now. He’d never trusted people who made steeples with their fingers.
    â€œMy proposition,” Renz said, “involves an unsolved homicide.”
    Despite his wish that Renz would make his pitch and then leave, Quinn felt his pulse quicken. Once a cop, always one, he thought bitterly. Blood that ran blue stayed true. Wasn’t that why he found himself sitting around all day drenched with self-pity?
    â€œYou know the Elzner murder case?” Renz asked.
    Quinn shook his head no. “I stay away from the news. It cheers me down.”
    Renz filled him in. Jan and Martin Elzner, husband and wife, had been discovered shot to death ten days ago in their Upper West Side apartment. The deaths occurred in the early-morning hours, at approximately the same time. The gun that fired the bullets was found in the dead husband’s hand. It was an old Walther .38 semiautomatic. Its serial number had been burned off by acid.
    â€œLike half the illegal guns in New York,” Quinn said.
    â€œSeems that way. He was killed by a single shot to the temple.”
    â€œPowder residue on the hand?”
    â€œSome. But it mighta been transferred there if the gun was exchanged.”
    â€œBurns near the entry wound?”
    â€œYeah. He was shot at close range.”
    â€œMurder, then suicide,” Quinn said.
    â€œThat’s how it’s going down. That’s what they want to believe.”
    â€œThey?”
    â€œThe NYPD, other’n me. I think the Elzners were both murdered.”
    Quinn settled deeper into the sprung sofa and winced. His headache wasn’t abating. “What makes you different?” he asked Renz.
    â€œFor one thing, I intend to be the next chief of police. Chief Barrow’s going to retire for health reasons early next year. The department’s considering candidates for replacement. I’m one of those up for the job.”
    â€œYou’ve got the asshole part of it down pat.”
    â€œYou were the best detective in homicide, Quinn. You can be that again, if you take me up on my offer.”
    â€œI haven’t heard an offer,” Quinn said. Christ! Another offer. He licked his lips. They were dry. “But let’s take things in order. What makes you think the Elzners were both murdered?”
    â€œI’ve talked to the ME, Jack Nift, an old friend of mine.”
    Quinn wasn’t surprised Nift and Renz were friends. A couple of pricks.
    â€œNift tells me in confidence that the angle of the bullet’s entry isn’t quite right for a suicide—too much of a downward trajectory.”
    â€œDoes Nift say it definitely rules out a self-inflicted wound?”
    â€œNo,” Renz admitted, “only makes it less likely. Also, there’s what might be a silencer nick in some of the spent bullets, where they might have contacted a baffler or some irregularity in a sound suppressor, and the gun in Elzner’s hand wasn’t equipped with a silencer. There were marks on the barrel, though, where one might have been attached.”
    â€œBut the marked gun and slugs are no more conclusive than the bullet wound angle.”
    â€œTrue,” Renz