Dead Ringer by Ken Douglas Page B

hated that. “Oh, Maggie,” he whispered. So much blood.
    A couple more uniforms pushed through the crowd. They saw Gordon, one started to speak, but the first officer raised his hand and the man held his tongue. More cops, arriving in pairs. The alley was cleared of civilians, save Jonas and the uniforms.
    Gordon stroked the back of Maggie’s hand with his fingers.
    “ It’s Wolfe,” one of the cops said.
    “ Fucking ghoul,” another said.
    “ He gets the job done,” still another said.
    Gordon looked up to see a man in his mid-thirties push through the crowd. He was wearing faded Levi’s, a threadbare sportcoat over a white Dodgers T-shirt and a blue Dodgers baseball cap over a shaved head. He didn’t look like a ghoul.
    “ Clear everyone out. I need a few minutes,” Wolfe said, voice barely above a whisper.
    “ I heard about you. I know what you need,” one of the uniforms said and the police started to move back, taking Jonas with them.
    “ Come on,” the cop said to Gordon.
    Gordon met Wolfe’s eyes. They were pale blue, but sad, like they should have been brown. Gordon tightened his grip on Maggie’s hand.
    “ He can stay,” Wolfe said. “Give us fifteen. If the lab van comes, tell them it’s me, they’ll understand.”
    Then the alley was empty, save for Gordon, Wolfe and, of course, Maggie.
    “ Your wife?” Wolfe whispered.
    “ I’m gay.”
    “ How would I know?” Wolfe’s voice seemed to carry years of pain. More than a whisper, almost a rasp. Sad, begging empathy. He squatted down to Gordon’s level.
    “ I don’t know. Some people seem to.”
    “ Everybody cries,” Wolfe said. “Everybody hurts.”
    “ Not just that.”
    “ People are what they are.” He reached over and took Maggie’s hand from Gordon. He studied her face. “Who is she?”
    “ Maggie Nesbitt,” Gordon said. “She lives upstairs from me. We’re friends.”
    “ More than friends, I think,” Wolfe said.
    “ Yeah, we’re close.” Gordon didn’t want to admit she was dead.
    “ She have a husband? Someone we should notify?”
    “ Nick Nesbitt.”
    “ The news guy?”
    “ Yeah, that’s him.”
    “ He at home now, you think?”
    “ He wasn’t earlier. Maggie was upset about it.” He paused. “Why’d you clear the cops out?”
    “ I have to spend some time alone with the dead. Get a feel for them. Her.” He nodded toward Maggie. “It makes them real. I need that for me to do my job.” He handed her hand back to Gordon, then brushed the hair from her eyes. “She was beautiful.”
    Gordon turned away from her, sad that he had to see her this way, afraid this was the way he was going to remember her. “You’re going to get him, this monster?”
    “ I am. Now, before they come back, tell me all you can.”
    And Gordon did, finishing with Maggie coming into the Whale and telling them about the two men, Virgil and Horace with the ferret face, who’d chased her and the homeless men under the pier who’d rescued her, Darley Smalls and Theo Baptiste.
    “ She remembered their names. Both the ones from the store and the men under the pier?”
    “ Yeah.”
    “ And you remembered, too?”
    “ Yeah, I remembered, too.”
    “ Most people would have forgotten the second they heard it.”
    “ I’m a bright guy.” Blood rushed to Gordon’s face.
    “ Sorry. Don’t take anything I say personally. I have to ask. You understand?”
    “ Yeah.” Gordon took in a long breath, calmed back down. “My IQ’s off the chart and I have a photographic memory. Show me a page in book and I can read it back a month later.”
    “ That’d be great for my line of work.”
    “ For me it was a curse. I learned to hide it.”
    “ Why?”
    Gordon was still holding onto Maggie’s hand. The warmth, what there had been, was gone now. She was getting cold. Gordon shivered. “Being gay wasn’t a good thing when I was growing up. It’s easier now. I was in the closet and didn’t want to draw attention to