LITMIR.BIZ

      I was deep into sleep when a housekeeping cart rolled down the hall of the hotel and bumped into my door, hoisting me through filmy dreams. An eight a.m. meeting had been scheduled at the morgue. The autopsy on Ms Bernal wouldn’t take place until a relative or relatives had been notified, but the pathologist would do a thorough visual and non-invasive check of the body to ascertain how the wounds compared to those of Ms Anderson. My alarm, set for seven a.m., hadn’t buzzed. I yawned, pulled the pillow close, shot a glance at the clock.

      Saw 8.36 turn to 8.37.

      I howled and bailed from bed, raging at myself for forgetting the prime dictum of travelers: Never trust a hotel clock. Still dressing in the elevator, I sprinted into the street waving at the sea of cabs, all occupied. I ran for a block before a hack plucked me from the pavement.

      It seemed wherever the cabbie turned, a traffic jam waited, vehicles welded to the street with horns blasting. I grabbed my phone, thought, then slid it back into my pocket. The inspection would proceed as scheduled, and calling wouldn’t have made the difference of a raindrop in the Hudson. It took forty-five minutes to arrive at the morgue.

      “The meeting about the Bernal victim?” I asked the guard as I scrawled my name in the log.

      He shrugged. “That started an hour back. Folger’s case, right? That lady’s running on overdrive.”

      I ran down the hall. A section of the floor had been mopped, a cleaning cart straddling the floor as a warning. My shoes skidded on the wet floor and I grabbed the handle of the cart, barely kept from falling. I pushed through the door into the autopsy room. A morgue worker was rolling a draped body toward the coolers. A gray-haired pathologist snapped off his gloves, jamming them in the biohazard disposal. I figured by the look he gave me that I’d been a topic of conversation.

      Waltz, Folger, Cluff, and Bullard looked up from comparing notes beside the autopsy table. “Good of you to show up, Ryder,” Folger said. “Was it you I remember pissing and moaning about being included in every little everything? Or was that someone I forgot to invite?”

      “It was one of those mornings.” A limp and idiotic statement.

      Cluff tapped his watch. “Don’t worry, you’re only off by an hour or so.”

      “Not a world-shaking event,” Waltz said, downplaying my non-attendance. “It was pretty much like Ms Anderson. The womb was gone. There were more extensive injuries. Ridgecliff went wild with the knife, as you saw at the scene.”

      “I saw a lot of blood. They were loading the body when I arrived. I didn’t get into the kitchen, I stayed in the hallway.”

      “Outside looking in,” Bullard said. “I get the feeling that’s a pretty regular occurrence for you.” He tongued something from a tooth, spat it to the floor near my shoes. He winked.

      Folger stepped up. “Let’s all go deal with the rest of the crap in our lives, then check back together this afternoon, three or so, see if anything’s broken loose. That fit with your schedule, Ryder? Leave you enough time for your nap?

      “I’ll be fine, Lieutenant.”

      Waltz had to check the paperwork on another case and we made plans to meet later. I headed out the door, Folger and her two boyos signing forms saying they’d witnessed the procedure. I was twenty paces down the hall when Bullard’s voice called behind me.

      “Hey, Bubba, hold up.”

      I stopped beside the cart of cleaning supplies. It held bottles of disinfectant, a stack of rags, an empty two-gallon pail with a handle on a metal loop.

      “What is it, Bullard?”

      He stepped into my personal space. I felt heat from his body, smelled his breath and body odor. Overgrown bully types learn that trick early on, a wordless challenge. He tapped his watch. “Advice for the time-crippled. You can buy a Jap watch for twenty bucks. It’ll tell you the time if you can’t figure it out on your own. I mean it really tells you, you know?” He winked.

      “I must be missing something.”

      “The watch talks. In a dumb-ass robot voice even you could understand.” Bullard did an imitation: “‘Hey, you hick pussy … it’s eight-o-fucking-clock.’” He grinned like a Jack-o’-lantern carved from tallow, did the taunting wink again.

      I feigned dumb hick amazement. “No shit, Bullard? What’s your watch say?”

      His eyes shot to his wrist. “Nine fort –” He realized what he’d done, said, “You’re a smartass cunt. A little bitch.”

      Bullard hadn’t liked me from the git-go. I’d not cared much for him, either, but so what? We had work to do. But Bullard was one of those keep-pushing guys, needing me to either hold up my hands in surrender or tangle ass, him figuring he’d win by four inches of height, two of reach, and thirty pounds of gym-bred meat.

      My thinking was contrary. His pejoratives insinuated I was as low as a woman to him – not unexpected. I’d noticed him mocking Folger a couple times when her back was turned, pulling at his groin, licking his lips, grinning like the class clown. He knew crude jokes I’d forgotten in high school. “Hey, you heard this one? Two whores and a gorilla walk into a bar …” I’d filed Bullard into the class of men preferring women as receptacles first, arm candy second, companions and confidants, never. It gave me some buttons to push. I side-eyed the cart with the rags and pail, an arm’s length away, gave Bullard a mocking look.

      “Don’t worry, Bullard. I’ll be out of here soon. Back where there’s more testosterone in the departmental structure, if you get my drift.”

      His eyes flashed. “What are you saying?”

      I lowered my voice as if sharing a locker-room confidence. “I’m talking about sucking Folger’s ass. Some guys can’t climb the ladder on their own so they ride someone’s shirt-tails. But it takes someone special to ride skirt-tails.”

      I figured Bullard for a groin-shot type, and he was: Faking a left shoulder roll as if loading a punch, then the foot snap toward my cojones. I blocked it with my thigh and he had to throw

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