Free Cop Out by Susan Dunlap

presumably, so he’d know what calls he was not going to bother to answer. As for computers, Ott was a computer network unto himself. No apartment was burgled near Telegraph without Ott’s hearing, no corpse cold before he knew. I waited till Kidd sawed through the remainder of the bagel and asked, “Did he send anything to an individual or organization?”
    “You mean like the International Kidnap Club?”
    “Exactly. Or Harry Houdini the Third.”
    “Nah. And don’t think I didn’t look all that time I was in the PO line. Old Herman’s no fool. I coulda promised I wouldn’t peek, but it wouldn’t’ve mattered. No way I wasn’t going to see where those envelopes were going.”
    “Why didn’t he just have you drop them in the box?”
    “Probably would’ve. But he was sending me for stamps.”
    “Every time?” Ott’s business may have been marginal, but he’d been there for a quarter century. He should have had the confidence to buy more than one book of stamps at a time.
    “He wouldn’t use the flags. Didn’t like the flowers. Wouldn’t paste a memorial for any general or admiral on his letters. Animals were okay. There was a bird commemorative he went crazy over. State stamps he had to think about. Like Minnesota was fine, and Massachusetts. North Carolina he considered because of all the artists and writers, but he couldn’t bring himself to use it. Jesse Helms’s state, you know.”
    I laughed. “And people think it’s easy to be an old rad. Did he have any other state preferences?”
    “Like the ‘Hideout State’? No. The post office only puts out commemorative ones now and then.” He leaned back, a share-me smirk on his mouth—as if he were ready to offer a bit more free advice. Or keep it to himself.
    “Did you go to the library for him?”
    “No.”
    “Call the newspaper morgues?”
    “No.”
    “Did you get any information on mines or mining?”
    “No.”
    “Was he getting any computer printouts from other sources? Newspaper articles from the Internet?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Did he have any clients in the office while you were there?”
    “Nope.” He pulled the edge of the serape in front of him till the fabric was taut and sat staring at it as if the pattern of colors would reveal the truth. At the far end of the table one of the guys from evening watch settled in to write up a report. Behind their double window one of the swing shift sergeants sat talking on the phone; the other perched atop his desk, back to us, reports in hand, ear cocked automatically toward his shoulder radio. Kidd released the red cotton. “Well, Ott may have had one or two clients come in. I was hardly there all the time. You can’t exactly tell who’s a client and who’s just wandered into the building to get warm. But I never saw an ashtray or a scarf or anything around that Herman wouldn’t have himself. His clients, you know they’re more likely to stroll in late. I mean, Herman’s there all the time. He sleeps late. I mean, I lost my last job because I was late so often, and with Herman I woke him up a couple times.”
    “So are you saying he scheduled meetings in the middle of the night?” As soon as the words were out, I felt foolish. Schedule was such a formal word for Ott’s operation.
    “Well, actually, yeah. This one guy goes to some group that chants at four A.M. Herman saw him on his way there.”
    “Do you know what he came for?”
    “Wanted Herman to check out his incense importer. He was worried he was breathing in unholy pesticides.” Kidd’s smirk widened into a grin. “If you’re poisoned from burning sandalwood and malathion, do you get a free ride into the next life? Or just the assurance your corpse will be free from Mediterranean fruit flies? I asked Herman but…”
    “I know. He hates the idea of pesticides. Besides, he doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
    “Particularly about his clients. He almost fired me over that.”
    “Because you