A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block Page A

a trio of smoke rings. There wasn’t a lot of air moving in the detective squad room that morning. The rings drifted to the ceiling without losing their shape.
    “Hell of a story,” he said.
    “Isn’t it?”
    “This guy in Ohio sounds like a pretty decent fellow. What’s his name, Havlicek? Wasn’t there a guy with the same name played for the Celtics?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Also named Tom, if I’m not mistaken.”
    “No, I think it was John.”
    “You sure? Maybe you’re right. Your guy any relation?”
    “I didn’t ask him.”
    “No? Well, you had other things on your mind. What is it you want to do, Matt?”
    “I want to put that son of a bitch where he belongs.”
    “Yeah, well, he did what he could to stay there. A guy like that’s a good bet to die inside the walls. You think they can make any kind of a case against him in Massillon?”
    “I don’t know. You know, he got a big break when they read it as murder-suicide and closed it out on the spot.”
    “It sounds as though we’d have done the same thing.”
    “Maybe, or maybe not. We’d have had his call on file, for one thing. Taped, with a chance of voiceprint ID. We’d have run more elaborate forensic workups on all five victims as a matter of course.”
    “You still wouldn’t necessarily find sperm up her ass, not unless you were looking for it.”
    I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “For Christ’s sake, we’d have been able to say if the husband had any blood on him besides his own.”
    “Yeah, we’d have probably done that. Except we tend to fuck up a lot too, Matt. You’ve been away from it long enough to forget that side of it.”
    “Maybe.”
    He leaned forward, stubbed out his cigarette. “Every time I quit these things,” he said, “I’m a heavier smoker when I go back to them. I think quitting’s dangerous to my health. If that semen turns out not to be the husband’s, you figure they’ll open the case?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Because they’re light years away from having a case against him. You can’t prove he was in Ohio. Where is he now, you got any idea?”
    I shook my head. “I called the DMV. He doesn’t own a car and he doesn’t have a license.”
    “They just told you all that?”
    “They may have assumed I had official status.”
    He gave me a look. “Of course you weren’t impersonating a police officer.”
    “I didn’t identify myself as such.”
    “You want to look up the statute, it says you can’t act in such a manner as will lead people to believe you’re a peace officer.”
    “That’s with intent to defraud, isn’t it?”
    “To defraud or to induce people to do for you that which they wouldn’t do otherwise. Doesn’t matter, I’m just being a hard-on. No car, no license. Of course he could be the unlicensed driver of an unregistered vehicle. Where’s he living?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “He’s not on parole so he doesn’t have to tell anybody. What’s his last known address?”
    “A hotel on upper Broadway, but that was more than twelve years ago.”
    “I don’t suppose they held his room.”
    “I called there,” I said. “Just on the offchance.”
    “And he’s not registered.”
    “Not under his own name.”
    “Yeah, that’s another thing,” he said. “False ID. He could have a full set. Twelve years in the joint, he’s got to know a lot of dirty people. He’s been out since when, the middle of July? He could have everything from an American Express card to a Swiss passport by now.”
    “I thought of that.”
    “You’re pretty sure he’s in town.”
    “Has to be.”
    “And you think he’s gonna make a try for the other girl. What’s her name again?”
    “Elaine Mardell.”
    “And then he’ll nail you for the hat trick.” He gave it some thought. “If we had an official request from Massillon,” he said, “we could maybe put a couple of uniforms on it, try to turn him up. But that’s if they open the case and issue a