Pulpy

I know squat about shoes, but the pair hanging off the toes of the corpse in the bathtub looked expensive. Like, expensive with three zeroes after it. I could feel my stomach start to roil, looking at those shoes - these big-money cases always cause a major pain in my backside. There's always someone threatening to "have your job" or trying to grease your palm to overlook some nasty little habit you dug up. These rich types - they literally make me sick.

I backed out of the bathroom - money or not, this was Manhattan and bathrooms are still tiny - and checked over the bedroom. It wasn't pretty; the super had blundered around the room in a panic trying to find the phone after he discovered the body of his high-rent tenant, and the beat cops who'd showed up first hadn't done much better. They give these guys training on how to handle a crime scene like this, but walking the beat and shaking down street vendors is about the most they can be expected to handle.

I walked to the balcony door and checked it. Locked. Outside I could see a small balcony decorated with dozens of plants and a bunch of trinkets that looked like they probably came from South America somewhere. Probably the kind of stuff that was made by grubby villagers and sold down there for a buck a piece, but up here rich ladies paid hundreds for it.

I was about to turn away when I noticed that one plant had been knocked over and the pot had cracked on the tile floor of the balcony. I unlocked the door and slid it open with a soft rumble and stepped out.

The noise and smell hit me right away. You spend time on the street, you stop noticing after a while but the apartment had top-end air treatment equipment and the contract between the fresh, conditioned air inside and the muggy stench outside brought home again how much of a toilet this town is. No matter how high above it you get, the smell alway reaches you.

I bent to look at the pot - a small thing, maybe a bit larger than a softball. Some kind of cactus or something had been in it, but now it lay on the tile in a sprinkle of dirt. I checked above to see where it had been sitting and found a brown waterstain ring on a low shelf maybe two feet off the floor. Definitely the right size; looked like that was where the pot had been sitting. But the edges of the shelf were raised; it didn't look like you could just accidentally knock anything off it, at least nothing as small as the pot had been.

"Detective?" Walker was standing in the doorway, a memo pad in his hand. "They need you in the hall."

I looked at the pot again. Probably nothing. I stood and followed Walker through the balcony door and turned to slide it shut. As I turned back Walker asked,

"So waddya think? She do herself?"

These guys.

"Well, let me ask you this," I replied. "When was the last time you saw someone eat a bullet, then lay the gun neatly down on the toilet beside the tub?"