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Then she started to screaht have left Perhaps not; cop instincts die hard if they die at all, and I had spent toothose reluctant witnesses who slipped off into the shadows to feel co the role irl in her condition

But the ier, his body slumped over his desk, his features contorted in death, and I knew that I was looking at a er, but I'd put the gun in his hand by playing ame a little too well

I had not asked to have his life intertwined with ht to be a factor in his death Now his corpse confrontedat hter's way out of an unintentional homicide The bribery had laid him open to blackmail, which had provoked another homicide, this one intentional And that firstblacked for Spinner's ain, and had failed And I turned up in his office the next day, and so he told his secretary he wanted five minutes, but he'd taken only two or three of theun at hand Perhaps he'd checked it earlier in the day to make sure it was loaded And perhaps, while I waited in the outer office, he entertained thoughts of greetingto run a ht or to knock a man unconscious and throw hiain to shoot a man in your own office with your secretary a few yards away Perhaps he had measured out these considerations in his mind Perhaps he had already resolved on suicide I couldn't ask hihter, while ot his could travel

I had so his corpse, others in the hours that followed I don't kno long I looked at hi, I suppose Then reflexes took over, and I steered the girl back to the outer office and made her sit on the couch I picked up her phone and dialed 911

THE crew that caught it was from the Seventeenth Precinct over on East Fifty-first The two detectives were Jier man nah to nod to, and that ers I didn't look to be in for in with, and the girl and I could both confirun went off

The lab boys went through the h their hearts weren't in it They took a lot of pictures and un, and finally zipped Prager into a body bag and got him out of there Heaney and Finch took Shari's stateo home and collapse on her own tiaps so that the coroner's inquest could return a verdict of suicide, so they fed her questions and confiry lately, that he had been evidently worried about business, that his moods had been abnormal and out of character, and, on the mechanical side, that she had seen him a few minutes before the shot sounded, that she and I had been sitting in the outer office at the time, and that we had entered simultaneously to find him dead in his chair

Heaney told her that was fine So, and in the meantime Detective Finch would see her hoet a cab, but Finch insisted

Heaney watched the two of them leave "You bet Finch'll take her home," he said "That's quite an ass on that little lady"

"I didn't notice"

"You're getting old Finch noticed He likes the black ones, especially built like that Myself, I don't fool around, but I got to adets half the ass he tells onna fuck himself to death Tell you the truth, I don't think he o for hiarette and offered the pack to ive you odds he nails her"

"Not today he won't She's pretty shaky"

"Hell, that's the best time I don't knohat the hell it is, but that's when they want it thethe news, noould you make a pass at a time like that? Whatever she looks like, would you do it? Neither would I You should hear the stories that son of a bitch tells Couple of irder, Finch has to break the news to the wife He tells her, she cracks up, he gives her a hug to co he knows she's got his zipper down and she's blowing him"

"That's if you take Finch's word for it"

"Well, if half what he says is true, and I think he's straight about it I mean, he tells me when he strikes out, too"

I didn't much want to have this conversation, but neither did I want to h a few more stories of Finch's love life and then wasted a few er had we known each other better Finally he picked up his clipboard and concentrated on Prager We went through the automatic questions, and I confirmed what Shari had told him

Then he said, "Just for the record, any chance he could've been dead before you got here?" When I looked blank, he spelled it out "This is off the wall, but just for the record Suppose she killed him, don't ask me hohy, and then she waits for you or so to hiun, I don't know, a thread or soether and she's covered"

"You better cut out all that television, Ji your brain"

"Well, it could happen that way"

"Sure I heard hi to her when she went inside Of course, she could have set up a tape recorder-"