Chat - Archer Mayor [13]
They had never referred to that encounter since, but the nominal formality that had existed before had been replaced by something much warmer and more valued.
“Joe,” she said when she came on the line. “You usually let me put them in the cooler before you chase me down with questions.”
“I’m sorry, Beverly. I’ve got nothing with this guy. I hope it’s all right.”
“Of course,” she said. “I just finished up. But keep your fingers crossed for good tox results, because I didn’t find a thing—aside from a run-of-the-mill drowning, of course.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a scratch or a bruise. And his organs are in the same condition. I wouldn’t call him a health nut. He clearly didn’t make a point of exercising, and his personal hygiene could have stood improvement. But all his parts and pieces were working fine.”
Joe thought back to the man’s clothing, which had seemed unremarkable to him. “You think he was a bum?”
Hillstrom’s response was immediate. “More like he was heading down the social ladder. He struck me as a man who lives alone and doesn’t get out much, or lives with someone who doesn’t care that he only bathes occasionally. For what it’s worth, and based on a theory I would never share with anyone else, I think he was pure middle class. And from the style of his clothes and their present condition, I’d guess his fall from grace dates back less than a year.”
“What theory?” Joe asked, intrigued, remembering only now a frayed pant cuff and the worn heels of the man’s shoes.
“Toenails,” she said flatly, adding, “which I will deny if you quote me.”
“You guess their social class from their nails?” he asked, taken by surprise.
“Something like eight times out of ten, I’m right,” she told him. “It’s hardly rocket science, but the worse the toenails are, the worse is the decedent’s economic situation. This clearly only becomes useful when a person’s other outward indicators are conflicting, as with a bum dressed in a fine suit. Which,” she added, “is a little of what you’ve got here—a man on the skids, but whose toenails reflect a regular, if nonprofessional, attention to personal appearance. Do with it what you will.”
He laughed, shaking his head at the phone. “You don’t have much to worry about there. I won’t touch that with tongs. I appreciate it, though. And I will wait for the tox.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, “we did do the standard alcohol test on him—the prelim. He’d had maybe a couple of beers, that’s all.”
“Anything distinctive in his stomach?”
“No, I’m sorry. He ate too long prior to death.”
Joe stared sightlessly at the mesmerizing blur of snowflakes falling before him, lost momentarily in thought. Beverly knew him well enough to let half a minute go by.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“You already did,” she said, and hung up.
He punched in Sammie Martens’s number.
“Anything new?” he asked after she answered.
She knew he was in business mode, and kept to it for the moment. “Zilch. I expanded and double-checked the VSP canvass of the area, went over where we found the body with everything from a metal detector to a thermal imager, and ran the guy’s prints through AFIS, which admittedly only rules out major crimes—and only those that’ve made it into the database. Still, he’s not there. I’m now working on the theory that he was dropped from a plane, wearing a parachute, and that we should be out hunting for a used-parachute thief. How’re you faring?”
“Nothing. I just called the ME. Waste of a dime. Isn’t a mark on him, inside or out. If your jumping-from-an-airplane idea is right, he didn’t even die of a heart attack. She called it a run-of-the-mill drowning.”
“But the tox is still pending,” she