Line of Succession Read Free Page B

Intelligence.”
    â€œUh-huh. Well Mr. DeFord said she was your agent. Do you want the details by phone or would you like to come down and see for yourself? I’m afraid they made a mess of her.”
    â€œDefinitely a homicide, then?”
    â€œYou could say that. They ripped out her tongue with a pair of pliers and they dug out her heart with a hammer and chisel.”
    The door opened and Bev walked naked across the room, sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the match. She didn’t look at him: she stared at the floor.
    Lime said, “Sweet Jesus.”
    â€œYes, sir. It was pretty God damned vicious.”
    â€œWhere did this happen, Lieutenant?”
    â€œAn alley off Euclid. Near Fourteenth Street.”
    â€œWhat time?”
    â€œAbout six hours ago.”
    â€œWhat have you got?”
    â€œNext to nothing, I’m afraid. No handbag, no visible evidence except the body itself. No evidence of sexual molestation. We found a junkie searching the body but he claims he found her that way and the evidence supports his story. I’ve had people combing the neighborhood but you know the way things are in those parts of town—nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything.”
    â€œAny possibility she was killed somewhere else and dumped there?”
    â€œNot likely. Too much blood in the alley.”
    Bev stood up and padded to the bed. She handed him a freshly lighted cigarette and an ashtray and went back to her chair. Lime dragged suicidally on the cigarette. Choked, coughed, recovered, and said, “Do you need me down there to identify her? I seem to recall she had no next of kin.”
    â€œMr. Hill here gave us a positive identification on her. It won’t be necessary. But if you can give us a lead—if I knew what she’d been working on.…”
    Lime ducked it: “She was on a security case—I can’t give it to you. But if we come across evidence that might help in a criminal prosecution we’ll pass it on to you.”
    â€œSure, that’s okay.” A voice of resignation: the lieutenant had known the answer before he’d asked the question. But you had to go through the motions. Everybody has to go through the motions, Lime thought.
    â€œTell Chad Hill I’ll be in the office as soon as I get dressed.”
    â€œI will. Goodbye, sir.”
    Lime rolled over on his side to cradle the phone. Light in the room was weak, splashing in through the open door of the bathroom. He thought about the dead girl and tried to remember her alive; he smashed out the cigarette and climbed off the bed.
    Bev said, “I don’t know about the other guy. But your end of that conversation was right out of a rerun of Dragnet. ”
    â€œSomebody got killed.”
    â€œI gathered.” Her soft contralto was deepened by the hour and the cigarette. “Anyone I know? Knew?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNow you’re being strong and silent.”
    â€œJust silent,” he said, and climbed into his drawers. He sat down to pull on his socks.
    She got back into bed and pulled the sheet and blanket up over her. “It’s funny. No two men get dressed in the same order. My ex used to start from the top down. Undershirt, shirt, tie, then his shorts and pants and socks and shoes. And I knew a guy who refused to buy tight slacks because he always put his shoes on first and couldn’t get them through leg-huggers.”
    â€œIs that right.” He went into the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. Used her toothbrush and glanced at the lady-electric shaver on the shelf, but decided against it; he had a shaver in the office. In the mirror there were bags pendant under his eyes. I can’t possibly be as old as I look. He looked like a big sleepy blond Wisconsin Swede gone over the hill and a little seedy. A little bit of office paunch, a fishbelly whiteness about the upper chest and arms. He needed a