Free Aphrodite by Russell Andrews

perfectly honest, I don’t have a fucking clue where to even begin.”
    “I know.”
    “What about you?”
    “I know where to begin.”
    “That’s not my question,” Leggett said.
    “I know that, too.”
    “Maybe we should call in the Southampton boys.”
    “Good idea,” Westwood said. “I’m sure they have a crack homicide department.”
    “Goddammit, Jay! I’ve been covering your ass for six years! You haven’t had to do anything harder than run down some high-school shitheads making obscene phone calls. Now, what, you wanna play macho cop again, all of a sudden?”
    “I don’t want to play anything, Jimmy.”
    “Then what
do
you want?”
    “You ever have a homicide in East End?” Westwood asked.
    “Not since I been here. We had one vehicular manslaughter.”
    “I know how to get started. I know what questions to ask. So let me ask them. Hopefully, it won’t be that complicated. Most homicides aren’t. There’ll be a boyfriend or someone she fired or a crazy ex-husband. I can handle that.”
    “And if it
is
complicated?”
    When Westwood didn’t answer, Leggett said, “If it is? Can you handle
that
?”
    “I don’t have a fucking clue.” Westwood let loose with a quick laugh. It didn’t have a hell of a lot of humor to it. “If you want a guess, however, I’d say the answer is no, I can’t.”
    Leggett didn’t say anything for a while. Then: “Is there anything anyone else can do?”
    Westwood snorted. “Like who? Gary and What’s-his-name?”
    “It’s Brian, for chrissake.”
    “No, Jimmy. There’s nothing Gary or Brian can do.”
    “We have other people.”
    “We have three other people. And they make Gary look like Serpico.”
    “They’re gonna ask questions, you know. They’re gonna want to know why you’re all of a sudden turning into Supercop.”
    “Let ’em ask.”
    “What do I tell them?”
    “The same thing you tell anybody who ever asks about a homicide investigation: not a damn thing.”
    The first thing he did after leaving the chief’s office was go to the computer on his desk in the station. He opened up a file, labeled it susanna morgan, and began typing in information. His brain was working logically and objectively. It all felt surprisingly natural.
    He typed:
    Roof—Blond guy—pale skin.
    Well dressed. Casual.
    Victim (Susanna) shocked to see man on roof.
    He wanted info—she gave it to him. Name of person? Place? Thing? Code?
    Info wanted: “Afro” or “Amfer”????
    “Walrus”????
    Broken glass, staged accident. He’s clever. But not as clever as he thinks.
    Dark-color car. Probably stolen or rented.
    He saved his notes on a disk, stuck the disk in his desk drawer, told Gary to check and see if there were any reports of a dark, non–sports car stolen over the previous two days within forty miles of town. When Gary looked blankly at him, Justin said, “You’re a cop. Use some cop stuff to figure it out.”
    And the next thing he knew, he was headed over to the
East End Journal
office because that was the logical starting point. You could start with family, boyfriend, or office. Susanna’s family was back in Ohio, which was where the body had been shipped for burial. She didn’t seem to have a current boyfriend. The office was four blocks from the police station. It was an easy call.
    The atmosphere in the
Journal
office was solemn and subdued. Not surprising, Westwood decided, since everyone who worked there was in mourning.
    “What was she working on?” Harlan Corning repeated Westwood’s question. He leaned back in his chair doing, Justin thought, his best Perry White impersonation. “She was in the middle of a lot of things, as always.”
    “Can you be a little more specific?”
    “I just don’t see the relevance, that’s all. I don’t think Susanna was killed—
if
she was really killed—because she panned Steven Spielberg’s new movie.”
    “Is that the last thing she wrote?”
    “Is Spielberg a suspect now?” When