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The next thing Matt saw, as he entered the office, was a young female, white, sitting in a chair. Her head was hanging limply back. Her eyes were open and her head, neck, and chest were covered with blood. She was obviously dead. On the floor, lying on his side in a thick pool of blood, was the body of a heavy man. His arm was stretched out, nearly touching the desk.
Matt looked at the man behind the desk.
“What happened here?”
“I was held up,” the man said.
“By who?”
Matt looked at the office door and saw that Jason Washington and one of the Highway Patrolmen had stepped inside the office.
“Two white guys.”
“Are you all right?”
“I was shot in the leg,” the man said.
Matt crossed to him and saw that he had his right leg extended, and that the trouser leg between the knee and the groin was soaked in blood.
“Can you describe the men?” Matt asked.
“There was two of them,” the man said. “One was a short, stocky sonofabitch, and the other was about as big as I am.”
“How were they dressed?”
“The little fucker was in a suit; the other one was wearing a zipper jacket.”
“Mustaches, beards, anything like that?”
The man shook his head.
Jason Washington turned to the Highway Patrolman standing beside him.
“Get out a flash on that,” he said softly. “And tell Police Radio that Sergeant Washington and Detective Payne of Special Operations are at the scene of what appears to be an armed robbery and double homicide.”
SIX
“That was interesting,” Sergeant Edward McCarthy of the Homicide Unit said to Detective Wallace J. Milham as he walked up to a desk where Milham was trying to catch up with his paperwork. Milham looked at McCarthy with mingled curiosity and annoyance at hav
ing been disturbed.
“Radio just told me we have a double homicide at the Inferno Lounge,” McCarthy said. “No names on the victims yet, but the report came from Police by radio. A Ninth District van, relaying a message from none other than Sergeant Jason Washington of Special Operations, who is apparently on the scene.”“I wonder what that’s all about.” Milham chuckled. “That neighborhood, and especially that joint, is not the Black Buddha’s style. Who’s got the job?”
“You’re the assigned detective, Detective Milham,” McCarthy said.
“Give me thirty seconds,” Milham said. “Let me finish this page.”
“Take your time. The victims aren’t going anywhere,” McCarthy said, and added, “I’m going to see if I can find the Captain.”
Captain Henry C. Quaire, Commanding Officer of the Homicide Unit, was located attending a social function—the annual dinner of the vestry of St. John’s Lutheran Church—in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel with his wife when Sergeant McCarthy reached him.“Where are you, Mac?”
“In the Roundhouse.”
“Pick me up outside. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Preoccupied with his concern about what his wife would say when he told her she would have to drive herself home—a dire prediction of tight lips and a back turned coldly toward him in their bed when he finally got home, a prediction that was to come true—Captain Quaire neglected to inquire of Sergeant McCarthy whether or not he had gotten in touch with Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein. The Chief liked to be notified of all interesting jobs, no matter what the hour, and a double willful killing would qualify by itself. With Washington somehow involved, he would be even more interested.
