Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) by Jason Miller

wasn’t there when I saw him yesterday.”
    Wince snapped on a glove and carefully opened Luster’s mouth and looked inside. Then he looked up at me.
    â€œHe’s been shot in the mouth.”
    â€œHead’s intact, though.”
    â€œLooks like small caliber. Little twenty-two, maybe. Basically a pellet gun. Not the gun that killed him, that’s for sure. Killer scorched his lip with the barrel,” he said. “That’s a good eye you got on you, son.”
    I said, “Dwayne Mays was shot in the ear. Luster in the mouth.”
    â€œAfter he was dead.”
    I nodded. “After he was dead. Some kind of message? Dwayne listened to the wrong people, Luster talked to the wrong people? Or talked too much?”
    â€œCould be,” Wince said. “Except Dwayne’s wound was fatal, not an afterthought. And he was a newspaper reporter, not a broadcaster. You wanted to send a message, wouldn’t you cut off his fingers or something instead?”
    â€œHell, I don’t know. It was just an idea.”
    Wince said, “My experience, things don’t go down like that. The killer doesn’t leave behind a playing card or a miniature dollhouse version of the crime scene or whatever they do in the movies. You wish maybe they would sometimes. It’d be easy to narrow a list of suspects down to, say, the guy with all the antique pocket watches.”
    â€œProbably.”
    â€œWell, don’t feel bad. It’s a common mistake. And look at the bright side, you’ve given me something to rub in that little shit Dunphy’s face. He completely missed this business with the bullet in the mouth,” Wince said. He thought it over for a moment and then turned back to look at Luster’s body and said, “You got any sense of what it’s all about?”
    â€œMe? Why would I?”
    â€œBoy downstairs says you were working for the old man, poking around looking for this photographer went missing.”
    I said, “Looking and looking badly. Truth is, I was on my way this morning to turn in my resignation. I’m not even sure what they thought I could do for them.”
    â€œMe, either,” he said. “Least not yet. One thing, though, you’ve had yourself one hell of a day.”
    â€œMore like hell of an afternoon. Whatever’s happening here is happening fast. Somebody’s working with a sense of urgency.”
    â€œSeems that way.”
    â€œMaybe this is the part where you read me the riot act for mucking around in police business?”
    He shrugged and said, “Maybe it is. And I guess I ought to. But way I see it is this—and let me know if I’ve got anything wrong here—Luster basically made you an offer you couldn’t walk away from. The boy out there filled me in on the details. I don’t know you’d find many cops would sneer at you for grabbing that deal, way our own pensions are going these days.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œDon’t thank me yet,” he said. “I’m not saying you were entirely above-board on this, either. Fact is, I think you weren’t crazy about the assignment, but you went along anyway, thinking you could maybe ask a few questions and do a little light lifting and basically fart around until the police cleared the case or Beckett came home on his own or Luster came to his senses and called the whole thing off.”
    â€œThat’s pretty close.”
    He said, “I have my moments. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, but I’m inclined to let you off the hook here, mostly because Luster should have known better than to try a foolish stunt like this.” He looked at the body on the bed. “What the hell was he thinking?”
    â€œI was wondering the same thing,” I said. “He didn’t seem confident of a good outcome from the police. And hedid ask me to bring Beckett to him first, assuming I ever found