Free River City by John Farrow Page A

for me to have been him, or for him to have been me. We have the same physique, similar background. He’s a family man. To his family he was never a hood. He was a father, a husband. Make sure nobody gets to his house before me.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “He was also an ex-hockey player. He played for Chicago, and somebody else. New York, I think.”
    They waited for him to lower his gaze, and when he didn’t, the other cops around him and the coroner also looked up at the Sun Life.
    “He could have done it,” Touton stated. “He had the balls. The strength. He could have broken in and slid down by rope. But he never could haveplanned all that. Not Roger. He’s not that kind of thief. He would’ve been hired to carry it out.”
    “Then he gets back down here and somebody kills him with what he stole,” Sloan pointed out. “Makes no sense, no matter how you cut it.”
    “Unless somebody else stole the knife and he crossed paths with the thief in the dark. Still doesn’t make sense, though. To go to all that trouble to steal a million-dollar dagger, then to lose it in a guy’s heart.”
    The coroner returned to the corpse and, with his gloved hands, tried to extract the knife from the body. The weapon did not slide free easily. He had to remove instruments from his bag and use them to slowly extract the weapon, working it loose with difficulty. Finally, the dagger slid up into his hands.
    “I wish I could reward you with the crown of England, for pulling Excalibur from stone, Claude.”
    “I’ll settle for a good night’s sleep. And a chance to hold this in my hands.”
    “Interesting, though. Whoever implanted it might have had the same trouble getting it out. Then he might’ve had to take off before he succeeded.”
    “That’s possible. Look at this thing.”
    The handle was made of bear bone, the blade of stone. The cutting edge was serrated, not naturally, but had lost its edge over time and was quite jagged. The very tip of the knife had snapped off, Touton noticed.
    “Look, the leading edge, the change of colour. I bet that piece is still in him.”
    “I’ll be looking for it,” the coroner assured him. “Do you see the jagged edge? That’s what made it difficult to extract. It caught on the breastplate, a rib. The blade isn’t steel, after all. It’s soft. It’s only stone.”
    The bone handle was partially wrapped with hide—very old, so that it was conceivable to think it was original. A remarkable aspect to the knife were the gold and diamonds embedded in the handle. They were not finely cut, but rough-hewn in a primitive fashion. The weapon was now centuries old.
    “You’ll take care of this?” Touton asked him. “Don’t leave it lying around.”
    The coroner nodded. “There’s a safe I can use, back at the office.”
    “Probably it’s more secure with you than at the police station.”
    “Definitely, I’d say.”
    Touton grunted.
    “All right, I’m going to bag the body now, Armand. Need anything else?”
    He moved his chin slightly. “I could use that good night’s sleep you were talking about, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
    In the distance, the wail of sirens and the roar of the mob still sounded. Closer to them, fire smoke drifted by and mingled with the exhaust fumes of their cars.
    “This could go on for days,” the coroner concurred.
    “The Rocket should talk,” Miron suggested.
    “What?” Sloan asked him.
    “The Rocket, he should get on the radio. Tell the people to calm down.”
    “The Rocket! On the radio!” Sloan challenged him. “To save Campbell’s ass?”
    “He should get on the radio,” Touton butted in, lending authority to the suggestion, “to save the city.”
    The men nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation, when Miron disrupted their mood. “He mentioned the Rocket, sir. Do I get to shoot his coat?”
    “You little shit!” Sloan burst out.
    Touton glanced at the young cop. “Now you know you goaded him,