Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy Read Free

a
burglar, but the modeling agency that had the policy on her seems
kind of quick on the trigger."
    "And you'd like to see our jacket on it, right?"
    "Right."
    Holt stopped again, just short of smiling at me.
    "Lieutenant?"
    "I was thinking about last year, with that Marsh
guy and the hooker at the Barry."
    "You know I wasn't involved in that."
    " How about what happened afterwards?"
    "I was in jail, remember?"
    "I remember a lot of things, Cuddy. And like I
said, it's not so good for a guy in your line of work to have me
remembering. But you've got to make a living, too, right?"
    I wasn't following the way this was going. "So I
can see the jacket?"
    "Seems to me last time I showed you a little
cooperation, it blew up in my fucking face."
    I didn't need this. Then I thought about Mullen and
his family and how much my old chief investigator needed my old job.
    "Lieutenant, all I'm asking for is a little help
here."
    "A little help? A little help, that I can give
you."
    Holt stood and crossed to a file cabinet, yanking
one, then another folder out before deciding on a third. He returned
to the desk and laid the file on it, but in front of his chair, not
mine. Settling into his seat, he opened it, scanned a cover sheet,
then looked up at me.
    "Tell you what, Cuddy."
    "What?"
    "I'll feed it to you. Like they do with the
little chunks of fish at the Aquarium."
    "The Aquarium."
    "Yeah. I'll toss you a little chunk, and then
you make like a seal and catch it in the air and clap for yourself.
What do you say?"
    I drew in a long breath, thought again about Mullen's
goofy kid with no teeth, and took out a pad and pen. "Fine."
    "First off, the girl, she gets it on the top
floor of a three-story in the South End. She's supposed to be going
to a party downstairs, then they're going out afterwards somewhere."
    "Who's hosting the party?"
    "Another model, name of Sinead something or
other." Holt pronounced the name the Irish way, Shuh-nude.
Probably thanks to the rock singer. "Only after this Mau Tim
doesn't show on time, they go looking and find her Dee-Oh-Ef."
    "DOF?"
    " ' Dead on floor'. "
    Maybe the humorectomy didn't take. "Who's
'they'?"
    "This Sinead character and two guys. One's a
Jap, ad exec over on Newbury, first block and very upscale. The
other's a black guy, photographer."
    "Names?"
    Holt seemed to think about that, then said, "Sure."
Skipping ahead in the file, he said, "The Jap, Larry Shinkawa."
    "That's S-H-I-N-K-A-W-A?"
    "Right. The colored guy's Oscar Puriefoy."
    " Can you spell that one for me?"
    Holt did.
    I said, "How about Sinead's last name?"
    " She's with the same modeling agency as the dead
girl. How many 'Sineads' can they have?"
    Holt was enjoying this. I said, "Go on."
    He read some more of the file. "Like I was
saying, they go up to look for this Mau Tim and have to break down
her door. They find the body crumped on the floor, nice shade of
blue. This Shinkawa checks the fire escape."
    "Fire escape?"
    "Yeah. He figured that's how the perp got out of
there."
    "How'd the killer get in?"
    Holt looked at me. "Same way, it's a Break and
Entry." He went back into the folder. "Then this Puriefoy
tries CPR on the girl, but her throat's crushed from the perp's
hands, so that did about as much fucking good as an enema."
    I looked at Holt, but he was still in the jacket.
Homicide hardens you after a while, but this wasn't hardness or even
gallows humor. This was Holt having fun with me in a way nobody
should enjoy.
    "Can you back up a little, Lieutenant?"
    The face rose. "Huh?"
    "Did the guy who checked the fire escape see
anything?"
    "No."
    " We know who had keys to the place?"
    "No. How come you ain't clapping, all these
little chunks I'm throwing you?"
    I took another breath. "The people downstairs at
the party didn't hear any kind of struggle upstairs?"
    "How the hell . . . Oh, I see what you mean. No,
Cuddy, the girl was killed on the top floor of the house, and the
party was on the first floor."
    "Who lives on the