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“Not yet. I’ll close the door to his office, and let you know what Ranger finds on the rewind. It’s not as if this perfectly fits the pattern.”
I called Ranger and asked him to check the video.
“This guy really likes himself,” Lula said, looking at the photos on the wall. “His private office here is filled with pictures, and he’s in just about all of them. He’s got pictures of himself with Mickey Mouse and Beyoncé and Bill Clinton and Keith Richards and Richard Simmons. And there’s lots of pictures with people I don’t know. Here’s one of him standing in front of the deli.”
“Mr. Skoogie used to eat at the deli all the time when it was owned by Mr. Sitz,” the assistant said. “They were good friends. They were roommates in college.”
It was like getting hit in the face with a pie.
“Shazam,” Lula said.
I called Morelli back. “Come bag the shoe,” I said. “There’s a connection.”
I got a text message from Ranger. Skoogie arrived at 7:10 a.m. Took elevator. Never left.
“Is there another way off this floor?” I asked the assistant. “Are there fire stairs?”
“By the elevator,” she said.
“Do they go to the lobby?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never u
sed them.”
“What about this door in the corner?” Lula asked. “Is it a way out?”
“It’s a coat closet,” the assistant said.
Lula opened the door and a man fell out. He had a knife stuck in his neck, and he looked surprised.
“Holy cow!” Lula said, jumping back.
The assistant shrieked and fainted.
I was sucking air and trying not to look. The bagel I’d had for breakfast felt like it was halfway up my throat.
Luis was the only one who didn’t look like he was going to throw up. He took a throw pillow from the two-seater couch in Skoogie’s office and put it under the assistant’s feet. He was young, but he wasn’t a lightweight, I thought.
“He’s dead,” Lula said. “I hate dead. And he brushed against me. And now I have dead cooties. I got the creepy-crawly dead cooties. I need something. I need a donut. Who’s got a donut?”
“I have a granola bar in my bag,” I said.
“That’s not the same as a donut,” Lula said. “It doesn’t have the same therapeutic value.”
I made another call to Morelli.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m at my desk. I’m finishing something up, and then I’ll grab a uniform and come collect the shoe.”
“Okay, but there’s a d-d-dead guy here now, so could you hurry a little?”
“A dead guy?”
“I think it might be Leonard Skoogie, and he has a knife in his neck and a number two written on his forehead in black marker.”
“I’m on my way.”
