"Split Image" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Robert B.)

2

SUITCASE SIMPSON DROVE the Paradise police car across the causeway to Paradise Neck, with the sun bouncing brightly off the open ocean to his right and the sheltered harbor to his left. He always thought the ocean reflected the sun more brightly than the harbor, but Jesse always laughed at him when he said it, so he didn't say it anymore. Still thought so, though.

He had the morning shift, seven to two on the east side of town, along the water. Arthur Angstrom was on the west side. It was noon. A Cadillac Escalade was parked at an angle on the roadside, just past the Paradise Neck end of the causeway. Simpson pulled up behind it and got out. The car was empty, and there were no keys in sight. Suit tried the door. It was unlocked. He got in and sat in the driver's seat. He opened the glove compartment. The car was registered to Petrov Ognowski. He found the button inside the glove compartment and popped the tailgate. Then he got out and took a look.

There was a dead man.

The back of his head was black with dried blood. Suit felt for a pulse in the man's neck. There was none. And his skin was cold. Suit went back to the cruiser and called it in.

"Molly? Suit. I got a stiff in the back of a Cadillac SUV, out at the Neck end of the causeway."

"You want an ambulance?" Molly said.

"Pretty sure he's dead, but no harm," Suit said. "Where's Jesse."

"He's out of the office," Molly said. "I'll send him when I find him."

"Okay."

"You know who it is?" Molly said.

"Car's registered to Petrov Ognowski," Suit said. "I don't know if the stiff is him."

"You haven't searched him," Molly said.

"No."

"Don't blame you," Molly said. "Here we all come."

The first to arrive was Arthur. He pulled his cruiser in behind Suit's and walked over and looked in the back of the SUV.

"Back of his head's all fucked up," Arthur said.

"I figure that's where he got shot," Suit said.

"Nice police work, Suit."

Simpson grinned.

"But there's no exit wound that I can see."

"So?"

"Just observing," Suit said.

Behind them, from the Paradise end of the causeway, there was the sound of a siren.

"You search him?" Arthur said.

"We got people to do that, don't we?"

"Sure, State ME will inventory everything."

"So why don't we let him search?" Suit said. "'Less you want to?"

"Search him?"

"Yeah."

"We can let the ME do it," Arthur said.

The siren faded as the ambulance pulled up and two EMTs got out. One was a woman. Her name was Annie Lopes.

"Whaddya got?" she said.

"Looks like a murder," Arthur said.

Suit said, "Unless he shot himself in the head and then climbed into the back and pulled the tailgate shut."

"That how you found him?" Annie said.

"Yep."

The two EMTs went and looked at the body. Annie put her hand to his throat and put her hand on his face. She picked up his right arm and let it fall.

"He's already starting into rigor," she said.

"So he is dead," Arthur said.

"Mostly they are," Annie said, "when they're in rigor." The second EMT was a guy named Ralph.

"Find any keys?" Ralph said.

"Nope."

"How'd you open the back?" Ralph said. "Car was unlocked," Suit said. "I popped the tailgate." Annie laughed softly.

"Wow," she said.

"Cops have their ways," Suit said.

More sirens sounded across the causeway.