The 5th Horseman

Chapter 37

I GRABBED THE PHONE in my office on the first ring when I saw that it was Claire.

“I’ve got some preliminary findings on Jag Girl,” she told me.

“Want me to come down?”

“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” she said. “I’m ready for a change of scene.”

The smell of oregano and pepperoni preceded Claire, who ambled into my office with a pizza box and a couple of cans of Diet Coke, saying, “Lunch is served, baby girl. Nature’s most perfect food. Pizza.”

I moved files from the side chair, cleared the stuff on my desk onto the window ledge, put out my finest paper napkins and the plastic cutlery.

“I took the stairs,” Claire said, dropping into the chair, beginning to carve up the pie.

“Well, give them back. We’re gonna need them later.”

“As I was saying before your awful joke,” she said, laughing at me, “I climbed the stairs. Three steep flights. That’s about a hundred calories, wouldn’t you think?”

“Uh-huh, I’d say. Probably cancels out a quarter of a slice of nature’s perfect food.”

“Never mind that.” She chuckled, flopping a steaming slice onto my paper plate. “I don’t believe in making war with food. Food is not the enemy.”

“A truce on pizza,” I said.

“To the truce,” Claire said, touching her cola can to mine.

“The whole truce,” said I. “And three kinds of cheese.”

I joined in with Claire’s long, rolling laugh, one of my favorite sounds in the world. Whenever work got particularly grisly, the two of us got giddy. Sometimes, it even helped. We polished off one of Pronto Pizza’s best in about ten minutes as Claire brought me up to date on our latest Jane Doe.

“Taking into account her exposure to the low temperature last night, I’m calling Jag Girl’s time of death somewhere ’round midnight,” she said, lobbing her empty can into the trash basket.

“The clothes were gorgeous,” she said, “but a bad fit. Too small on top, too big across the hips, but this time her shoes fit.”

“And she never walked in them, right?”

“Clean soles. And just like with Caddy Girl, that funky perfume was only on her labia.”

“When are you starting the post?”

“Soon’s I get back downstairs.”

“Want some company?”

I phoned Tracchio’s office and blew off the staff meeting. Was I rebelling against authority? Yep. Then I went out to the squad room and invited Jacobi. I filled him in as we jogged down the stairs to the morgue.