Lullaby

Chapter 8

When the first paramedic arrived on the scene, the first action he took was to call his stockbroker. This paramedic, my friend John Nash, sized up the situation in suite 17F of the Pressman Hotel and put in a sell order for all his shares of Stuart Western Technologies.

«They can fire me, okay,» Nash says, «but in the three minutes I made that call, those two in the bed weren't getting any deader.»

The next call he makes is to me, asking if I've got fifty bucks for him to find out a few extra facts. He says if I got shares of Stuart Western to dump them and then get my ass over to this bar on Third, near the hospital.

«Christ,» Nash says over the phone, «this woman was beautiful. If Turner hadn't been there, Turner my partner, I don't know.» And he hangs up.

According to the ticker, shares of Stuart Western Tech are already sliding into the toilet. Already the news must be out about Baker Lewis Stuart, the company's founder, and his new wife, Penny Price Stuart.

Last night, the Stuarts had dinner at seven o'clock at Chez Chef. This is all easy enough to bribe out of the hotel concierge. According to their waiter, one had the salmon risotto, the other had Portabello mushrooms. Looking at the check, he said, you can't tell who had what. They drank a bottle of pinot noir. Somebody had cheesecake for dessert. Both of them had coffee.

At nine, they drove to an after-hours party at the Chambers Gallery, where witnesses told police the couple talked to several people including the gallery owner and the architect of their new house. They each had another glass of some jug wine.

At ten-thirty, they returned to the Pressman Hotel, where they'd been staying in suite 17F for almost a month since their wedding.

The hotel operator says they made several phone calls between ten-thirty and midnight. At twelve-fifteen, they called the front desk and asked for an eight o'clock wake-up call. A desk clerk confirms that they used the television remote control to order a pornographic movie.

At nine the next morning, the maid found them dead.

«Embolism, if you ask me,» Nash says. «You eat a girl out and you blow some air inside her, or if you fuck her too hard, either way you can force air into her bloodstream and the bubble goes right to her heart.»

Nash is heavy. A big guy wearing a heavy coat over his white uniform, he's wearing his white track shoes and standing at the bar when I get there. Both elbows on the bar, he's eating a steak sandwich on a kaiser roll with mustard and mayo squeezing out of the far end. He's drinking a cup of black coffee. His greasy hair is pulled into a black palm tree on top of his head.

And I say, so?

I ask, was the place ransacked?

Nash is just chewing, his big jaw going around and around. He holds the sandwich in both hands but stares past it at the plate full of mess, dill pickles and potato chips.

I ask, did he smell anything in the hotel room?

He says, «Newlyweds like they were, I figure he fucks her to death, and then has himself a heart attack. Five bucks says they open her and find air in her heart.»

I ask, did he at least star-69 their telephone to find out who'd called last?

And Nash says, «No can do. Not on a hotel phone.»

I say, I want more for my fifty bucks than just his drooling over a dead body.

«You'da been drooling, too,» he says. «Damn, she was a looker.»

I ask, were there valuables—watches, wallets, jewelry—left at the scene?

He says, «Still warm, too, under the covers. Warm enough. No death agonies. Nothing.»

His big jaw goes around and around, slower now as he stares down at nothing in particular.

«If you could have any woman you wanted,» he says, «if you could have her any way you wanted, wouldn't you do it?»

I say, what he's talking about is rape.

«Not,» he says, «if she's dead.» And he crunches down on a potato chip in his mouth. «If I'd been alone, alone and had a rubber … ,» he says through the food. «No way would I let the medical examiner find my DNA at the scene.»

Then he's talking about murder.

«Not if somebody else kills her,» Nash says, and looks at me. «Or kills him. The husband had a fine-looking ass, if that's what floats your boat. No leakage. No livor mortis. No skin slippage. Nothing.»

How he can talk this way and still eat, I don't know.

He says, «Both of them naked. A big wet spot on the mattress, right between them. Yeah, they did it. Did it and died.» Nash chews his sandwich and says, «Seeing her there, she was better-looking than any piece of tail I've ever had.»

If Nash knew the culling song, there wouldn't be a woman left alive. Alive or a virgin.

If Duncan is dead, I hope it's not Nash who responds to the call. Maybe this time with a rubber. Maybe they sell them in the bathroom here.

Since he had such a good look, I ask if he saw any bruises, bites, beestings, needle marks, anything.

«It's nothing like that,» he says.

A suicide note?

«Nope. No apparent cause of death,» he says.

Nash turns the sandwich around in his hands and licks the mustard and mayo leaked out the end. He says, «You remember Jeffrey Dahmer.» Nash licks and says, «He didn't set out to kill so many people. He just thought you could drill a hole in somebody's skull, pour in some drain cleaner, and make them your sex zombie. Dahmer just wanted to be getting more.»

So what do I get for my fifty bucks?

«A name's all I got,» he says.

I give him two twenties and a ten.

With his teeth, he pulls a slice of steak out of the sandwich. The meat hangs against his chin before he tosses his head back to flip it into his mouth. Chewing, he says, «Yeah, I'm a pig,» and his breath is nothing but mustard. He says, «The last person to talk to them, their call history on both their cell phones, it said her name is Helen Hoover Boyle.»

He says, «You dump that stock like I told you?»