"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

bull's-eye of some target, a bulbous red-veined nose. His skin was tanned to the
colour of cured leather; his salt-and-pepper hair was cut en brosse. He wore a
brown Dacron suit not because he liked it but because he had to. He would just
as soon have come to work in a flannel shirt and a pair of old slacks. 'What,
then,' Florum said equally slowly, 'did he die from?'
'He was poisoned,' Doc Deerforth said. 'Doc,' Florum said as he wearily rubbed
his hand over his face. 'I want this to be real clear, understand? Crystal
clear. So perfectly clear that there won't be any possibility of a
misunderstanding when I make out my report. Because, beside the State Detectives
who, I'm sure you're aware, I'm gonna have to copy on this - and when I do,
they're gonna be down here like locusts on a wheat-field asking us to do all
their goddamned field work and then sucking us dry - beside those sonsabitches,
I've gotta contend with the county bastards who're most probably gonna claim
that this thing's in their jurisdiction. And, to top it all off, now that you
tell me it's a murder, I'm gonna have Flower rumbling in from Hauppauge on his
white horse wondering why our investigation is taking so long and when's he
gonna be relieved of the stiff, his staff's so overworked.' Florum slammed the
flat of his hand down on the cover of a copy of Crime in the United States,
1979. 'Well, this time they're just gonna have to wait long enough so that
they're one great step behind me.'
A sergeant came in, handed Florum several typewritten sheets and went out
without a word.
'Christ, it makes my blood boil sometimes. I'm no goddamned politician. That's
what this job calls for. Who the hell cares whether I know police procedure or
not. God!' But he got up, still, and came back with a file which he opened on
his desk. He ran a hand through his hair, scratched at his scalp. He began to
shift through a number of eight-by-ten black and white prints which, even upside
down, Doc Deerforth recognized as shots of the drowned man.
'First of all,' Doc Deerforth said calmly. 'I've taken care of
Flower. He won't bother you, at least for the time being.'
Florum looked up briefly, inquisitively, then his gaze returned to the photos.
'Yeah, how'd you work that little miracle?'
'I haven't told him yet.'
'You mean to say,' Florum said, as he reached out an oblong magnifying-glass
from a desk drawer, 'that nobody knows about this ... murder but us chickens
right here in this room?"
'That's precisely what I mean," Doc Deerforth said quietly.
After a time, Florum said, 'You know, there's nothing shows up on these photos.'
He shuffled the photos like a deck of cards until a close-up of the head and
chest of the drowned man was on top. 'Nothing but a routine drowning.'
'You won't find anything there.'
'That's what I said.'
'Doesn't mean, though, that there isn't anything to see.'
Florum sat back in his chair and crossed his hands over his ample belly. 'Okay,
Doc. I'm all ears. You tell me about it.'
'What it boils down to is this. The man was dead before he even hit the water.'
Doc Deerforth sighed. 'It was something that might have been overlooked by even
as good an M.E. as Flower.' Florum grunted but said nothing. 'Look, there is a
small traumatic puncture wound in the man's chest, middle-left, and it could
easily have been mistaken for a rock scrape -which it is not. The puncture led