Konarth, Joe - Jack Daniels 02 - Bloody Mary by Konrath Page B

database.”
    “Sure. What names?”
    “Start with this district, then the surrounding districts, until you get all twenty-six.”
    Fuller furrowed his brow. “Cops? You think this might be a cop?”
    I had to play this carefully, lest the rumor mill begin to turn.
    “No. But if I find out which cops visited the morgue during the past week, I’ll be able to start questioning them to see if they noticed anything strange.”
    “Got it.”
    “There’s no rush. You can get started tomorrow.”
    He nodded, offered a grin, and left my office.
    I finished typing the report of the interview with Colin Andrews (leaving out the powdered sugar fiasco), and then decided to head home. Perhaps Latham had left a message on my answering machine.
    He hadn’t. Neither had Mom. But Mr. Friskers, the lovable ball of fluff, had shredded both of the living room curtains.
    “Tomorrow,” I promised, “you get declawed.”
    I changed into an oversized T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen, cat litter sticking to the bottoms of my feet. I swept it all up, dumped it back into the litter box, and was surprised to find that Mr. Friskers had made several deposits of his own.
    “Good kitty,” I called to him, wherever he was hiding.
    I went to the fridge to get him some milk, and stepped barefoot into another deposit he’d made, on the floor.
    This required a shower. After the shower, I finished cleaning the kitchen, gave the cat some milk and food, and searched my cabinets for dinner. I found a can of soup. I wasn’t in the mood for soup, especially mushroom, but it was expiring next month, so I ate it before I had to throw it out.
    Halfway through, Mr. Friskers wandered in.
    “I like the curtains,” I told him. “Very feng shui. The whole room flows much better.”
    He ignored me, sticking his face in the milk.
    I didn’t finish the soup, so I set that on the floor for him as well, then I went into the bedroom and stared at my nemesis, the bed.
    My sheets were in the dryer. I put them back on, climbed in, and closed my eyes.
    It took all of five seconds for me to realize that I had a better chance of winning lotto than falling asleep. So instead, I flipped on the television.
    Reruns. Sports. Crap. Movie that I’ve seen before. Crap. Crap. Reruns. Crap. Home Shopping Network.
    I finally let it rest on an infomercial about the antiaging effects of juicing. A tiny ninety-year-old man did dozens of push-ups and exclaimed how celery shakes were life’s elixir.
    Did anyone buy that?
    I did, and sprung for the rush delivery.
    I also bought a Speedy Iron, guaranteed to do the job in half the time, a Bacon Magic, since the show proved beyond any scientific doubt that bacon was a health food, and a new home waxing system that promised it wouldn’t hurt as much as the four other new home waxing systems gathering dust in my bathroom closet.
    The only thing that saved me from plunking down serious cash for a countertop rotisserie oven was the fact that my counter space was barely large enough for a toaster. I toyed with the idea of buying one anyway, and keeping it in the bedroom. Even though I’m a single woman and rarely home, the novelty of roasting two entire chickens at the same time more than made up for that.
    I drifted off sometime in the middle of a seminar on how to improve your memory, and slept on and off until seven A.M. , when the phone rang.
    I bolted up in bed, hoping it was Latham or Mom.
    “Lieutenant? This is Officer Sue Petersen on the Osco stakeout. I just followed a man who bought a twenty-dollar phone card. ID’ed him as one Derrick Rushlo, thirty-six years of age. He’s the owner of the Rushlo Funeral Home on Grand Avenue.”
    “Hold on a second.”
    I’d left Fuller’s report in the kitchen. Rushlo’s name was on the second page. He’d been to the county morgue last week.
    “Are you still watching him?” I asked.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Stay on him. Call if he moves. I’ll be there within the