The Perfect Crime by Les Edgerton Page B

anything.”
    “Well, ol’ bud, I think you may be partly wrong there. We found something.”
    “What?”
    “We got a pretty sharp gal who did the inventory. Remember Ida? She spotted something.”
    “I remember Ida. She’s a good cop.”
    Grady took a long drag off his cigarette and felt his lungs ache. He ought to quit smoking. His lungs probably looked like a couple of black walnuts.
    He remembered Ida all right. He remembered a night on a stakeout in a van whose lettering said Smitty’s Heating and Air Conditioning on the outside, and he remembered especially a pair of long, long legs. He remembered a couple of other nights as well, then it wore itself out. Only they remained friends, not enemies as is the usual case. The way it happened, Ida gave out signals that she wanted to move past a casual affair and as soon as he saw that, the relationship changed. Cops shouldn’t get involved, he’d told her when he saw things were heating up. Especially with other cops. She must have agreed with his logic, as her affection for him soon cooled and a week later she was dating somebody else. A straight guy, somebody who sold insurance. Smart move, Ida, he remembered thinking at the time, but every once in a while he wondered what would have happened if they had gone on seeing each other. It’s all so much ancient history, he thought, and switched focus back to the present.
    “What’d Ida find?”
    “Well, you’re wrong about the perp not buying anything, looks like...but we’re right, this wasn’t a B&E. In fact, I’d say you were right on the money. This looks more like armed robbery.”
    “How so?”
    “You know your brother pretty well so I guess you know he kept ace records. Turns out he kept a receipt for every single thing he ever sold. Bullshit cost less than a buck, he has a friggin’ receipt for it.”
    “Yeah, Jack’s a righteous sort. Likes to be straight on his taxes. Good citizen.” Good man , too. Whoever did this was going to pay. He’d nail him if it took him the rest of his life.
    “Ida figured that out pretty quick with all the records we founde noticed something missing. A receipt. All his receipts were in perfect order, even the ones he messed up. He’d write a void on them. Well, listen to this...she couldn’t find the last one he wrote. She knew it was missing ‘cause his sales book was right there on the floor where it’d been knocked off. According to the numbers there was only one not accounted for. The last one used. And she found all the rest. Every single one of them.”
    “So that one’s gone. We don’t know what was on it. The inventory’d show what was missing. That’s what would be on that receipt, I’ll bet. Read me the list of what’s missing.”
    “Don’t have to. I told you Ida’s a sharp cookie. She took the receipt book to the lab and they got the whole thing. Your brother had written it without taking it out of the book. Came through on the next receipt and the lab boys said it was the easiest thing they did all week. I got it right here. You know I’m not supposed to do this, give you this, but what the hell. I don’t think it’s gonna help much though. Looks like pretty normal stuff you’d buy in a store like that. One big item. A remote control transmitter. Futaba. You heard of those? Expensive. My guess is that’s what the perp killed him for. Cost three grand, but there’s something I don’t understand. Two hundred of this is for something your brother wrote down as a ‘Service Charge,’ only it doesn’t say what the service was. Doesn’t look like any big-time deal to me. Probably a punk like we figured. Want me to fax it to you?”
    Grady said, “You think I got a fax machine in my shoe, Marty?”
    They both laughed.
    “Tell you what. If it’s not a long list, read it off. Hold on a minute--let me grab a pencil. Marty?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Did you ask yourself what punk spends three grand on electronic stuff? Doesn’t sound like a punk