"Laird Long - Negative Identification" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Laird)

"Do you have a picture of your husband, Mrs. DeWheeler?" I asked, politely enough.

She fastened her beady eyes onto me. They flashed anger and contempt. I got the feeling she wasn't going to offer me cookies. "Who are you?" she demanded to know.

I smiled, thanking my lucky stars I had brushed my teeth and cleaned under my fingernails that morning. "I'm Charles Sydney," I said. "I'm a private investigator."

Her piggish nose oscillated with disgust. She stared at the flustered Janner. "Can I leave?" she asked again. She knew the answer.

"I guess you, um, sure," Janner replied. He was staring at the corpse. His mug had a confused and angry expression. There was thinking to do beyond the routine.

I checked in on Janner a week later. He was at his desk sucking on his fountain pen. Time stood still in his office. I wondered if he'd heard that the war was over. And we'd won!

He looked up but didn't get up as I entered the office. He put the fountain pen down. It was even more heavily chewed than last time. There were equal parts saliva and ink in that pen. He pushed a puffy hand through his flaming red buzzcut and groaned in greeting. Then his hands came together on his desk blotter and his thumbs began to twiddle on their own volition.

"Identify the stiff yet?" I asked, taking a chair in front of his desk.

He sighed. He turned red in the face. His jowls began to quiver. I fingered my handkerchief in self-defense.

"No," he said.

"What's the story?"

He twiddled while his face burned, then spoke in his usual truncated English. "DeWheelers live on an isolated farm ten miles outside the city. Moved there a year ago. No relatives. No friends. No one around here has ever seen Mr. DeWheeler. There are no pictures of Mr. DeWheeler. Mrs. DeWheeler reported him missing two weeks ago. Body turns up a week later with his wallet. She says it isn't him. No way to identify body."

I hesitated five seconds to make sure the fact file was closed. Janner stared at me, his big brown eyes crying out: 'Help me!' "Any dental records?" I asked.

Janner's head sunk down between his shoulders like the sun on the British Empire. "No teeth," he bleated.

"How did the guy-"

"Struck on the back of the head with a blunt object. Appears to be about seventy to seventy-five years of age. Good physical shape, if slightly dirty. Fingerprints don't match up with the records."

"Where was he-"

"Body discovered in a ditch alongside a dirt road just off Cedar Street, in the North End. No one lives in the area - just mice in the empty fields. Was an industrial park that went bust. No witnesses."

"Hmm," I said. "Have you tried displaying him in the front window?"

Janner's smile was sick at birth and died in seconds. "Laugh it up," he said. "She was just in here asking if we had found her husband yet." He wagged his head like a dog that has lost the scent and is getting ready to curl his tail between his gams. "Asking if we had found her husband yet," he repeated.

I stuck my pipe in my maw and lit fire to it. "So, either that stiff is Mr. DeWheeler or it isn't. If it is, then Mrs. DeWheeler had something to do with his death and is covering up by refusing to identify the body. If it isn't, then our frosty friend somehow stole DeWheeler's wallet, maybe croaking him in the process, and then later got conked himself. Seems simple enough."

Janner nodded sarcastically. "Where do we start?" he squealed.

"Any money in the wallet?" I asked.

"No."

"Does the stiff match the description Mrs. DeWheeler gave of her husband when she reported him missing?"