The Sleeping and the Dead Read Free

politician and knew how to play the system, so he’d been able to hang on to his job. I had pissed mine away.
    Chief Billet trailed Wiley into the theater. Adam and I followed, along with what appeared to be half the police department. “Don’t these people have jobs?” I said as I turned on my cameras. I had brought my Canon, my work camera, in addition to the new Leica.
    â€œEverybody thinks it’s the Playhouse Killer,” Adam said.
    â€œIsn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t think so.” For some reason, I was relieved by that. I had learned a long time ago to treat this like a job, but the Playhouse murders got to me.
    From the back of the auditorium, the body looked like a pile of old bedding left on stage. It lay in a pool of white light. Wiley’s assistant was already circling it, snapping photos. The victim lay facedown under an old mattress freckled with overlapping liver-colored stains, with only his naked brown legs visible from the knees down. As soon as we got on stage, I secured a flash to the top of my Canon and started shooting.
    At the first snap, Dr. Wiley glared up from his open tackle boxes. “Keep her back!” he shouted. Chief Billet smiled and waved me on, so I continued to shoot. I took several photos of the bottoms of the victim’s feet, which were black with grime. I saw no signs of blood on either the stage or the mattress.
    Dr. Wiley had his techs spread a sheet of plastic next to the body and then lift the mattress aside and lay it on the sheet. Dave, the theater manager, turned green and asked Adam if he could leave. Adam nodded and he hurried up the aisle with one hand over his mouth.
    I snapped some shots of the cops standing around the stage in this surreal overhead light, with the darkness stretching up and away behind them. At the rear of the highest balcony, I noticed a young girl standing under an Exit sign, watching us work. I turned my Canon on her and looked at her through the viewfinder, but the screen was empty. I didn’t say anything. Nobody else would be able to see her.
    Wiley spoke into a digital recorder, describing the state of the victim. “Black male, early twenties, approximately five-ten, one hundred and thirty pounds, nude, discovered lying facedown beneath a mattress. A three-foot length of electrical conduit is lodged in the victim’s anus.”
    â€œI think the cause of death is obvious,” Chief Billet said.
    Dr. Wiley laughed once, derisively, as he knelt over the body. I locked myself up cold and tight and kept shooting pictures. Treat it like a specimen, an object of study rather than horror. Focus on the details, the minutiae of visual data. Ignore the person, no matter how familiar he seems. This was a stranger, not a ghost from my past. Luckily, I couldn’t see his face.
    Wiley continued, “There are no other signs of external trauma. Deep coloration of the buttocks suggests cause of death to be asphyxiation .” He glared at Chief Billet as he said this.
    â€œGet it?” one of the cops grunted. “Ass-fixiation?” A sophomoric snicker circled the stage. Wiley rolled his bloodshot eyes.
    â€œTOD?” Billet asked.
    Wiley extracted a long probe thermometer from the torso and examined it. “Less than four hours.”
    â€œWhat about an ID?”
    â€œHe’s naked,” Wiley said. “If I see his wallet lying around, I’ll let you know.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be a smartass, Paul,” Billet said. He turned to Adam. “Well, McPeake? Is this the work of our boy?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    Several cops groaned or swore. “Why not?” Billet asked.
    Adam said, “It’s not consistent with his pattern. The Playhouse Killer stages his victims in murder scenes from famous plays.”
    â€œYou can’t get a bigger stage than the Orpheum.”
    â€œBut it’s not from any play I know. Dave agrees.” He