Death on the Diagonal - By Nero Blanc Page 0,12
black-and-white magnetic Scottie dogs; can’t pry ’em apart with a spatula or dynamite. Makes me worry when I don’t see you and Belle together.”
Rosco glanced at his watch. “She’s meeting me at . . . well . . . twelve-thirty. I gather she’s not here yet.”
Martha winked. “Would I have patted your tush if your missus were sitting at table number two? I don’t think so. But your ex-partner is down at the corner booth with Dr. J . . . Big barn fire out at Collins’s last night, but I guess you heard all about it. The whole thing sounds fishy, if you ask me. When the rich can’t get richer legally, they can always rake their insurance companies over the coals . . . or get into politics. That’s where the real money is.”
Rosco chortled. “Everything sounds fishy to you, Martha. But who knows? You’ve been right before. I’ll join Al and Abe. If Belle shows up, send her over, will you?”
“You betcha, buttercup.”
Rosco worked his way down the restaurant’s center aisle, dodging waitresses and greeting former coworkers: plain-clothes and uniformed officers alike. There wasn’t an empty table. At the far booth sat his former partner, Lieutenant Al Lever. With Al was the police department’s chief forensic investigator, Abe Jones. The two men couldn’t have been more dissimilar. While Al was decidedly middle-aged, balding, and overweight, with a smoker’s cough that followed him everywhere, Jones had the appearance of a movie star in his youthful prime. He was African-American, the son of an Episcopal priest who’d named him Absalom, after Absalom Jones, in the hopes that Abe would follow in his vocation. But Abe had gone the science route, and his father had had the good sense not to push the issue. Besides, Abe was well known as having a keen eye for a pretty lady, something that doesn’t always play out well in the priesthood.
“Heya, Poly-crates, what’s shakin’?” Al said as Rosco slid into the booth. The butchering of his ex-partner’s last name was something Lever had been doing since the day they’d met. Rosco had realized long ago that it wasn’t likely to stop any time soon.
“Not much,” was Rosco’s offhanded reply. Despite the fact that he and Al were as close as two friends could be and that they often continued to collaborate, Rosco wasn’t disposed to discuss his recent conversation with Walter Gudgeon.
The denial brought on a hearty laugh from Jones. “Oh, right, how many times have we heard ‘Not much’ from this guy, only to find out he’s been hired by some high-profile, bigwig muckity-muck to look into the nefarious shenanigans of a capricious consort.”
Rosco chuckled and held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “No. Really. It’s been a slow day over at the Polycrates Agency. As a matter of fact it’s been a slow week. It seems nobody’s cheating on anybody lately. What’s the world coming to?”
Abe shook his head, grinning with the perfect smile that melted his women friends’ hearts. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“Can we keep this conversation on a more elevated plane, you two?” Lever said before he was attacked by a sudden coughing fit. “Dang allergies,” he added as he caught his breath.
“A downright shame you’re being bothered like that, Big Al,” was Jone’s laconic reply. “I would have thought they’d leave you alone by October. Pollen count being down and all.”
“The Camels must be kicking it up,” Rosco tossed in.
“Yuk . . . yuk . . .” Al wheezed.
“I guess it’s a year-round kind of affliction,” Rosco added.
“Just keep it up, guys,” Al told them. “You get to be my age and show up with mysterious maladies, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your mouths.”
“Mysterious maladies—is that a nickname for filter tips?” Rosco asked.
“Har har.” But Lever laughed in spite of himself while Rosco changed the subject.
“I gather the department’s had a busy morning out at King Wenstarin Farms.”
“A nonstory on that one,” Al offered. “It’s all cooled off, no pun intended. The fire marshal has ruled a ‘nonsuspicious blaze.’ The way he pieced it together—with help from old man Collins—is that the barn manager, one Orlando Polk, must have accidentally knocked over a countertop space heater, which in turn tipped over an open bottle of booze, and the combination caused the tack room to light up like a bonfire at a Boy Scout jamboree. Seems like Collins had been after the guy to clean up his act.”
“Have either one of you been out