Short Squeeze by Chris Knopf

the overstuffed furniture, a coffeemaker, and a tiny refrigerator just big enough to hold white wine and light cream. There were also a few extra things stacked around to complete the homey feel but not enough yet to overwhelm the space completely.
    Sam said it was more like a landfill than an office, though you can’t give too much credence to a guy whose house made a Shinto temple look like cluttered heap.
    I spent most of the day trying to catch up on all the client work I’d let slip while chasing down the Wolsonowicz family and being chased by killer pickups. This is where an Irish Catholic upbringing really shows its worth. There’s no such thing as a casual responsibility withme. Once I tell someone I’m going to do something, it becomes an Obligation. A Sacred Trust. A Covenant Sanctioned by God. The scale of the Obligation is irrelevant. I put the same dedication into dropping your letter in the mailbox as I do into clearing the title on your new million-dollar house. Or keeping your sorry ass out of state penitentiary.
    So I think it’s only fair, given my commitment to managing a person’s legal affairs, that I get a little wiggle room as to when that management actually takes place. Some people invest way too much importance in things like timing and schedules. Sure, you have to get to the station on time, but is that the
only
train that’ll get you where you want to go?
    I plowed through nearly the whole backlog before the middle of the afternoon, when I gave myself a well-earned pause for nicotine, coffee, and a good stare at the windmill across the street. I’d forwarded both my phones into voice mail, so I also checked for messages. One was from Sam.
    “Call me,” he said, and hung up.
    So I did.
    “Do you know a woman named Edna Jackery?” he said, instead of saying hello.
    “Do you know who you’re talking to?” I asked.
    “Jackie Swaitkowski. Or somebody using her phone.”
    “Who’s Edna Jackery?”
    “The owner of the nipple. The former owner.”
    I’d forgotten about the nipple. Probably pushed it out of my mind. Only so many grim images you can retain at a single time.
    “Wow. How’d you find that out?” I asked.
    “Suffolk County forensics. They had a tissue sample on file.”
    “Isn’t that sort of confidential?”
    “The M.E. is an acquaintance of mine. He owed me a favor. It’s pretty fresh information. Sullivan will get the report tomorrow.”
    “So I’ll act surprised when he tells me.”
    “If he tells you,” said Sam. “The cops don’t usually make a habit of sharing investigative information with civilians.”
    “I’m not a civilian. I’m an officer of the court.”
    “You near your computer?” he asked.
    “I’m looking right at it. I guess that’s near.”
    “See what you can find out about Edna Jackery. The M.E. told me she was a hit-and-run. That’s all I know. I’ll hold.”
    I often thought the only reason Sam cared about me was because I looked up information for him on the Internet. He used to be a big-shot tech-head till he went off the rails and got himself fired. You’d think he’d have his own computer. Maybe he would if I didn’t always do what he wanted. Jackie the Luddite enabler.
    It took a few moments to log on to my favorite browser and go to a site that archived local news. Sam took it all as patiently as ever, which means not at all. I could hear him huffing into the phone.
    “Just hold your horses,” I said. “This doesn’t happen instantaneously.”
    “Then what the hell good is it?”
    I watched the hoped-for information fill the screen.
    “ ‘Edna Jackery,’ ” I read from the news report, “ ‘forty-two and the single mother of a teenage son, was declared dead at Southampton Hospital, where she was taken after suffering multiple injuries after being struck by a hit-and-run vehicle on County Road Thirty-nine on Thursday night. The police are actively investigating and say there is limited information on the series