Part 25 (1/2)

”Hold on a minute,” Thinnes told him. He went back into West's bedroom, to the closet where he'd seen what looked like clean laundry. There were towels folded beneath the other stuff. He pulled out three and brought them back to Noir. ”I'll owe you one.”

Noir swallowed whatever he was going to say and took the towels. He stalked off, with the dog trailing.

Bendix had finished with the scene and hauled his box of tricks away, and the coppers had packed West up and s.h.i.+pped him by the time Noir returned with the dog. He waited with it in the hall. The animal was wet but clean. Noir had changed his leather duty gloves for latex. His uniform was damp and splattered with what Thinnes hoped was just mud.

”I used up all my disinfectant,” Noir told him. ”And they're going to be able to skate down the alley. Oh, and I tossed the towels.”

”Thanks, Noir.” Thinnes pulled out his wallet and extracted a ten. ”This cover cleaning your uniform?”

Noir looked surprised, then as if he wanted to say something. He did say, ”Yeah, thanks,” as he took the bill.

Thinnes handed him a twenty. ”You and Azul have one on me when you get off.”

”Thanks,” he said again. This time he sounded like he meant it. He pocketed the money. ”What do you want me to do with the dog?”

It was still sitting where Noir had parked it when they'd come back from its bath.

Thinnes got out his keys. ”Put him in the back of my car. And start it up so he doesn't freeze. We'll be down in a minute. Oh, and give Animal Control another call. Tell 'em to pick him up at Area Three.”

Before Noir could comply, Bendix came back into the hall. ”Thinnes, you-” He broke off when he spotted the dog, then grinned slyly. ”That a witness?”

”What do you want, Bendix?”

Bendix never pa.s.sed up a chance to get his licks in. ”It's your offender in the Uptown case, isn't it? Great detective work, Thinnes. You got him cold-for littering, anyway. And if you play your cards right, maybe even conspiracy to commit loitering.”

Noir folded his arms across his chest and covered his mouth with one hand, but he still couldn't stop his shoulders shaking as he laughed. Thinnes glared at him, and he turned quickly toward the door Bendix had entered by. The dog was up and after him like an obedience-trial champ.

Thinnes turned on Bendix. ”What?”

Bendix checked the hall, then said, ”I been thinking. Even though this looks like a busted pipe, I'll bet it was murder.”

Oster came out of the apartment to stand in the doorway. Folding his arms, he leaned against the jamb. His presence seemed to make Bendix more belligerent.

”Twenty bucks!” Bendix said. He pulled out his wallet, removed a twenty, and waved it in front of Thinnes.

Thinnes said, ”You're on!”

Bendix handed the bill to Oster. ”You can hold it.”

Oster took the money and shrugged. Thinnes got out his wallet. He had a twenty and a five left; he gave Oster the twenty. Bendix turned and walked away.

Noir and Azul were sitting in their squad, making sure the Caprice was safe from car thieves and dognappers. Oster and Thinnes got in it, and Thinnes waved to them. They turned on their lights and took off.

Inside, the Caprice was warm as Florida in August, but the car smelled like the wet dog s.h.i.+vering on the backseat. It figured. Thinnes turned off the heat and cracked the window before he pulled away from the curb.

When they'd gone about eight blocks, Oster put his hands over his face and said, ”Christ! Six more hours.”

Until quitting time.

”You could call in sick, Carl.”

Oster thought it over. ”Nah. I'll be okay soon as I get some coffee in me.”

The long silence, as they drove, was interrupted when the dog thumped its tail against the backseat. Oster twisted around to look at it. ”Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d probably hasn't eaten in days. Maybe we oughta swing by McDonald's and get him something.”

Thinnes had been trying to figure out why Bendix would make a sucker bet, when West obviously died of natural causes. He dragged his attention back to the car. ”Huhn?” McDonald's. ”McDonald's?”

Oster gave him a hurt, you-weren't-paying-attention-again look.

”Why don't you just take the d.a.m.n thing home with you, Carl?” They came even with Addison, and Thinnes turned west. Toward McDonald's.

”Can't. My daughter's allergic.”

”How's that working out?” He stopped for the light at Western.

”So far, so good.” Oster looked out the window as he answered. Even at 10:30 P.M. there were plenty of people out and about, and a fair amount of traffic on both Addison and Western. ”She seems to have ditched her att.i.tude with the b.u.m.” The light changed, and the car started forward. ”It's like having my little girl back.”

Neither of them said anything more until Thinnes stopped to give their order at McDonald's drive-up. He looked back at the dog and said, ”What do you want?”

The dog wagged its tail.

Oster started to take out his wallet, but Thinnes beat him to it. ”Just coffee, or d'you want something else?”

Oster sagged back in his seat. ”Coffee'll do it.”

”A large coffee and a Quarter Pounder,” Thinnes said into the speaker. When he pulled up to the pay window, he gave the girl his last bill, a ten. He stuffed the change she gave him into his pocket without counting it. The girl at the next window asked, ”Cream or sugar?”

Oster said, ”Yeah.”

She dropped a handful of paper sugar packets and three plastic cream containers in a cardboard tray that already held a large polystyrene cup and a paper bag decorated for Christmas with the golden arches. When she handed the tray to Thinnes, he pa.s.sed it to Oster and drove on.

The dog was sitting up on the backseat, watching hopefully, brus.h.i.+ng the car door with his tail. Oster balanced the tray on the seat while he unwrapped the Quarter Pounder, broke it in quarters, and offered one to the dog. The animal took it delicately, then swallowed it in one gulp. By the time a break in traffic gave Thinnes the chance to pull onto Addison, the Quarter Pounder was history.

When they got to headquarters, the dog created only slightly less of a stir than a lost toddler. Western and Belmont was, after all, the station where they'd cordoned off a scene with police-line tape so Maggie the duck, a not-so-wild mallard, could incubate her eggs undisturbed in a planter near the door. And the same hardened cops had given the duck and her family a police escort to the river when the hatchlings were ready for their first swim.

Thinnes walked the dog on the little fringe of gra.s.s east of the parking lot before he brought it inside, and before he got it upstairs, four people offered to walk it and three others offered it food. n.o.body wanted to take it home. One of the Property Crimes d.i.c.ks raided Lost and Found for an old coat, so it wouldn't have to lie on the bare squad room floor.

Upstairs, Thinnes put his papers on the table and threw the borrowed coat under it. He tied the dog to a table leg and ordered him to sit on the coat and go to sleep. It did.

”Rossi!” Oster whispered fiercely. He grabbed his McDonald's cup and rushed to the coffee machine, near Rossi's office door.

Both of the Property Crimes d.i.c.ks sitting across the room got up and came over to stand in front of Thinnes. One spread his Tribune out on the table and leaned over it as if fascinated by the story.

”What the h.e.l.l...?” Thinnes said.

”You want to have to explain your friend to the boss?”

As Rossi neared the table, he was distracted by the sound of a large cup of coffee hitting the floor near his office, followed by Oster's resounding, ”G.o.dd.a.m.n it!”