A Time for Murder. John Glasby

Got that?”

      He brushed past me, said something in a low voice to Rizzio, then went into the house with Sergeant Kowolinsky trailing after him.

      I picked up my gun from the guy at the gate, checked it was still loaded, and slipped it into its holster before walking back to my car.

      Getting in, I settled behind the wheel for a while, turning things over in my mind. I still wasn’t sure I’d done the right thing, agreeing to work for Gloria Galecci. From what I’d seen, there was no possible way anyone could have killed Galecci. Unless he’d somehow managed to stick that knife in the middle of his back himself, the whole thing looked impossible.

      What Donovan would make of it, I didn’t know. He wasn’t the most imaginative of men when it came to solving murders like this.

      Give him some body stretched out in an alley with plenty of prints and clues lying around, and he was in his element. But with an impossible murder, like this seemed to be, and with Rizzio breathing down the back of his neck, I couldn’t see him making much of it.

      I drove back to my office slowly, hitting the early morning traffic for most of the way. Dawn Grahame was just opening up when I got there. She eyed me curiously. Normally I arrived no earlier than nine, and it must have been obvious to her that I’d been up for some time.

      “Don’t tell me you’ve been out all night on a case, Johnny,” she said as I slumped down in my chair behind the desk.

      I nodded. “Get me some coffee, Dawn. Black and as strong as you can make it.”

      She came back with it five minutes later. After seating herself on the edge of the desk, she asked, “This got something to do with Carlos Galecci?”

      “Carlos is dead,” I told her, sipping the coffee. It burned my tongue and the back of my throat, but it brought some of the warmth and feeling back into my chilled body. “They found him this morning. The doc reckons he died some time around midnight.”

      “But not of natural causes?”

      “Not exactly. We found him inside a locked vault with a knife in his back. They had to burn through the lock to get inside.”

      Dawn whistled faintly through her teeth. She brought out a small file and began working on her nails. After a moment’s reflection, she said. “And you’re absolutely sure he died inside that vault?”

      I could see what she was getting at; the same possibility had occurred to me when I first saw the body. Had someone knifed Galecci just as he’d opened the vault, carried him inside and set him up in that chair, before letting themselves out, closing the door behind them?

      “I see what you mean, Dawn. The same idea had occurred to me. But he was seen going inside at his usual time and there was nothing out of the ordinary then.”

      She thought that over for a moment before pronouncing her considered verdict. “Then I guess you’re faced with something that couldn’t possibly have happened.”

      “Just what I told Sam Rizzio.”

      “All right. So where do you fit in now that Galecci’s dead? Has Rizzio hired you to find the killer?”

      “Not Rizzio. Mrs. Galecci.”

      Dawn gave me an enigmatic look. “You’re working for her?”

      “That’s about it.” I finished the coffee. “The trouble is, I don’t even know where to start. I’d like to get a good look around that vault, but I reckon that’s out of the question. And I’m damned sure Donovan won’t talk to me. The guy hates my guts.”

      “Is there no one else on the case who’ll talk to you?” Dawn got up and walked across to the window.

      I mulled that over. I knew a few of the officers in the Homicide Squad. A few of them were decent guys. But they all took their orders from Donovan, and whether any would give me any information was problematical. Still, it was worth a try.

      “There’s Jack Kowolinski,” I said. “He was with Donovan this morning. Once he’s off duty, I guess I know where to find him.”

      Kowolinski was unmarried, and he’d helped me on a couple of cases before. A decent cop, but a little too addicted to the hard stuff. He’d been in the force almost twenty-five years, and would certainly have made promotion a long time ago had it not been for his drinking.

      “Anything you’d like me to do?” Dawn asked.

      “Find out anything you can on Galecci. Somebody wanted him dead, and whoever it was, they certainly picked a unique way of doing it. They must have known his routine and somehow they had access to that vault.”

      “I’ll get on to it right away.”

      “And run a check on Sam Rizzio, though I doubt if you’ll find much.”