Free Scent of Evil by Archer Mayor Page B

sponges, rags, solvents, and whatnot, destined to maintain the dispatch office’s brand-new luster. “What’re you doin’ here so late?” He suddenly looked down at the floor, as if the words had blurted out before he could stop them.
    He was almost in his thirties, a somewhat scrawny-looking man with a pile of curly hair on his head and a pathetically wispy Vandyke. He’d been the night janitor for years, telling me once that he liked the privacy and the hours because they allowed him time to read. Indeed, he always had a paperback stuck in his back pocket, although I’d never been curious enough to find out what kinds of books he preferred. He was generally quiet, sometimes painfully shy, and, I thought, apparently perfectly suited to his solitary job.
    “Actually, I was about to commit a theft.” I waggled the fan that was still tucked under my arm.
    His eyes grew round. “That thing? If you don’t mind me saying, that’s not much of a theft—too noisy.” He hesitated, while a nervous smile spread across his face. “You know, Lieutenant, if it’s a fan you want, I could get you one as quiet as a whisper.”
    “From where?” I couldn’t deny I was interested. I’d heard the chief’s fan in action and understood why he never had it on. My lifting it had been an act of pure desperation.
    He gave me a lopsided grin, relieved at my lack of outrage. “Don’t ask me no questions and I won’t tell you no lies—isn’t that what they say?”
    I hesitated. “How about a temporary loan, from someone who won’t miss it?”
    “Oh, sure. That’s just what I had in mind. Be right back.” He piled his belongings along the wall and headed out the door.
    “I’ll be in my office,” I called after him and placed Brandt’s fan on a nearby windowsill.
    I returned to my own corner of the building. Under cooler circumstances, I actually enjoyed working here in the middle of the night. It wasn’t only the silence that made it appealing, although the still phones and absence of people were definite pluses; it was also the odd satisfaction of being up when almost everyone else was asleep. I felt in the middle of the night as if I were capable of deeds unachievable in the daylight—as if I were endowed with ethereal powers.
    Buddy found me as I was sorting through the contents of Woll’s file, separating the bureaucratic confetti from the reports that might tell me something.
    “Here you go.” He wiped a large blue-and-white plastic fan clean with a rag from his pocket and placed it on my desk, fastidiously moving aside a large ashtray filled with paper clips. The fan was enormous and looked brand new. “Even goes back and forth, and it’s got three speeds.”
    He got down on his knees and plugged it into a baseboard outlet. The fan began swinging its mechanical head back and forth, as if sighing in resignation at the plainness of its surroundings. It was admittedly the fanciest thing in my office.
    “See? Quiet as a whisper.” He was grinning like a sweepstakes winner. Helping the chief of detectives in an interagency theft had obviously made his day. He slightly readjusted the fan’s position.
    “It’s great, Buddy. I owe you one. What do I do with it after tonight?”
    “No one’s the poorer, I promise.”
    “And you won’t tell me where you got it.”
    Again, he looked at the floor and grinned. “Nope. I tell you what—if anyone misses it, I’ll take it back. It’ll never happen, though. That okay with you?”
    “I’m happy, Buddy. Thanks again.”
    I waited until he’d left before I sat down to survey what I’d collected. The fan kept shaking its head mournfully, drying the sweat on the back of my hands and making the heat almost bearable. I pulled the ashtray full of paper clips near to me in case I wanted to mark any pages.
    John Woll, as he’d told Billy and me, had graduated from high school ten years earlier. During his senior year, he’d been enrolled in the Law Enforcement and