Free Strip Search by William Bernhardt Page A

the other night at Burger Bliss; for that matter, an article reporting the incident, though happily unaware of the goriest elements, ran on the front page of the
Courier.
No doubt there had been speculation, perhaps even a betting pool, regarding how long it would be before I walked through the front doors.
    Here I was. And they all expected me to solve the mystery, to make some sense out of something that was so patently senseless. They were counting on me to stop the madness before it happened again.
    I felt an aching in the pit of my stomach, a desperate desire to flee, to run back to the parking garage and speed home. There was a twenty-four-hour liquor store on the other side of the block; I could be there in minutes. I wouldn’t overdo it—just a little swallow to settle my jangled nerves so I could perform, function at peak efficiency…
    Which was all crap, damn it. If I gave in once, it would all be over. I wouldn’t stop with one drink. I wouldn’t function at peak efficiency; I wouldn’t function at all.
    I clenched my fists and plowed a trail to my desk.
    Yes, my desk. My own little cheap plywood desk, but it wasn’t positioned in front of the men’s room like the last one. O’Bannon had tossed enough work my way during the past months to justify giving me a tiny corner of my own on the upper level. He’d kept me fairly busy, but I knew in my heart that he was going easy on me, tossing me softballs so I wouldn’t be too stressed, too pressured. So I’d have time to recover, to see my doctor, to get my life together again. He’d been good to me. I bet he thought about it a good long while before he brought me into this mess. But in the end, he’d had no choice. I was his behaviorist, and this case demanded one. He either called me or replaced me.
    So here I was, pretending I was up to the challenge, pretending that everything was normal, pretending that I couldn’t see the ripples on the surface as I carried my Styrofoam cup of jamoke back to my desk. I was a wreck. And they expected me to catch some goddamn maniac. Isn’t life great?
    Before I even had a chance to finish my cuppa, I saw Granger making his way to my desk, and for once, he wasn’t smirking. As if that wasn’t strange enough, instead of the usual caustic epithet, he muttered a very pleasant “Good morning, Susan.”
    I hardly knew how to respond. “And to you, Barry,” I replied, waiting for him to spring a trap.
    “Here’s the preliminary info we’ve gathered on the victim. I’ve got detectives searching his apartment as we speak. You were…umm…” He coughed into his hand. “You were right.”
    Ah. Now I understood. I glanced at the file. “Mohamadas Amir. Indian immigrant. Age twenty-eight.” I looked up at Granger. “Night-shift manager at the Burger Bliss.”
    “Landlord says he didn’t come home night before last, hasn’t been seen since. And,” he added, dropping another file on my desk, “we found the body.”
    I lapped up the file like a toddler with chocolate ice cream. “Really! Where?”
    “An alley on the north side of town. About twenty miles from the Burger Bliss.”
    “And we’re sure it’s the right body?”
    “What, you thought it might be some other faceless corpse?”
    What I was thinking, of course, was that it was possible this might not be the first time our killer had struck. Only the first to be discovered.
    Granger continued. “The coroner’s office is being typically tight-lipped until all tests are completed, but I can’t imagine that it would be anyone else.”
    I just hoped he was right.
    “Look, can we clear the air?” Granger obviously had something he wanted to say, so I let him say it. “We both know I didn’t want you on this case. But whatever you may think, it really isn’t personal. Since I became head of homicide, I’ve poured hours and hours into building a tight, strong team. I don’t think we need outside help. In fact, I think it’s a slap in the face. But