All Fools’ Day Foolery

When they got to Alba’s bedroom, Kavanagh saw what Monroe meant about the justice not dying here. He’d already been told about the bra, which was under what must have passed in the dark as an undershirt but what turned out to be a camisole. And his sleeping pants had been put on him backwards. The rest of the room was immaculate, though. There was a dressing table, but no sign of any of the makeup the judge had been wearing. He was laying there, arms crossed on his chest, legs pulled together. Not really how the last minutes of a heart attack victim would go.

Without speaking, Monroe leaned over and brought Kavanagh attention to the dead man’s hands. His fingernails were all broken and bloody. He fought being offed but had lost—and as neatly as the bed was made, that fight didn’t happen here.

“This led me to call someone before bringing in the Medical Examiner.” Monroe whispered to Kavanagh because the ME was still in the room, putting his tools back in his bag and looking none too happy. “The ME had to be put in line on what he’d put on the certificate no matter what he found. What he found was suffocation, probably by a pillow, but nothing like that is here—his nose bled and he had makeup on his face. There’s nothing here that mirrors that. So . . .” and here Monroe raised his voice, “. . . we have a case of heart attack.”

The ME snapped his bag shut, gave Monroe a dirty look, gave some instructions to one of the coroners’ office technicians standing by to take the body away, and then abruptly turned and left the room. It was only then that Kavanagh honed in on one of the technicians being Manny Lopez, a sexy young Hispanic who Kavanagh had seen both on the job and at a gay bar. Manny was young and had been on the make for Kavanagh in the bar. But he wasn’t blond, he didn’t rent himself out, and Kavanagh had this rule about hooking up with guys from the office, the coroner’s office being part of the police establishment. So, Kavanagh hadn’t responded to Manny’s signaling . . . until now. Now Kavanagh had the thought in the back of his mind that Lopez could be a source for information the detective sorely needed and was officially being denied.

“Good to see you, Manny,” he said. He didn’t need to get the young Hispanic’s attention. Manny had been salivating over Kavanagh and posing for him since Kavanagh and Monroe had entered the room. “Been meaning to talk to you. You free for a drink and lunch today—maybe at Good Friends on Dauphine?”