Paper Doll

chapter three

LEE FARRELL STOPPED into my office in the late afternoon while I was opening mail, and throwing it away.

“Lieutenant said you would be free-lancing the Olivia Nelson case,” he said.

He was a medium-sized young guy, with a moustache, a nice tan, and the tight build of a gymnast. He was nearly bald. What hair he had was close-cropped and the moustache was neatly trimmed. He was wearing white Reeboks, and chinos, and a blue chambray shirt under a tan corduroy jacket. As he turned to sit down, the butt of his gun made an angular snag in his jacket. He shrugged his shoulders automatically to get rid of it.

“Yes,” I said.

“Lieutenant said I should cooperate.”

“How do you feel about that?” I said.

“Figured I could probably get by without you,” Farrell said.

“It’s alarming how many people think that,” I said.

“No good for business,” he said.

“I’ve read the file,” I said.

“Lieutenant doesn’t usually hand those out,” Farrell said.

“Good to know,” I said. “You got anything not in the file?”

“If I had it, it would be in there,” Farrell said.

“It wouldn’t have to be,” I said. “It could be unsubstantiated opinion, guesswork, intuition, stuff like that.”

“I deal with facts,” Farrell said. It made me smile.

“You think that’s funny?” he said.

“Yeah, kind of. Are you familiar with Dragnet?”

“No. I don’t like people laughing at me.”

“Nobody does,” I said. “Think of it as a warm smile of appreciation.”

“Hey, asshole,” Farrell said. “You think you can fuck with me?”

He stood up, his hands loosely in front of him, one above the other. He probably had some color belt, in some kind of Asian handfighting.

“Does this mean you’re not feeling cooperative?” I said.

“It means I don’t take smart shit from anybody. You think maybe I’m not tough enough? You can step up now and try me.”

“Good plan,” I said. “We beat the hell out of each other, and when the murderer dashes in to break it up, we collar him.”

“Ah, hell,” Farrell said. He stood for another moment, shifting a little on his feet, then he shrugged and sat down.

“I don’t like being stuck on a no-brainer,” he said. “They think it’s a dead-file case, but they can’t ignore it, so they put the junior man on it.”

I nodded.

“The case stinks,” he said.

I nodded again. Penetratingly.

“Everything’s too perfect. No one had a bad word. Everyone liked her. No one could think of a single reason to kill her. No enemies. No lovers. Nothing. We talked with everybody in the family. Everybody at work. Everybody in her address book. Every return address on her mail. We made a list of every person we’d talked with and asked her husband and children if there was anyone they could think of not on it. We did the same at work. We got a few more names and talked with them. We do not have a single suspect out of any of them. We talked with her gyno, her physical trainer…” He spread his hands.

“Do you think there’s something wrong,” I said, “because you’re stuck on a no-brainer and don’t want to accept it, or is there something wrong?”

“I’m stuck on five no-brainers,” Farrell said. “I’ve got a full caseload of cases that go nowhere.”

“My question stands,” I said.

Farrell rubbed his hands slowly together, and opened them and studied the palms for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve thought of that too and I don’t know.”