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I was listening to Claire, looking at the victi over the other so-called heart attack victiated
There were the first two victiue, the feht in with the Sci-Tron fatalities Claire had connected Sprague’s death to that of a male cabdriver who actually did have heart disease—as well as a needle mark in his left buttock
Conklin and I had checked into the third known victim, the homeless addict discovered by the landscaper The landscaper had no information about the attacker, and the victim had no known relatives, which left us with no motive for his murder
Last week a real estate broker named Robert Riccardo, thirty-six, had left his office for a breath of air when, without warning, he’d dropped dead on the sidewalk His death would have been chalked up to cardiac arrest if Claire hadn’t gotten the word out to the pathologists in all the hospitals in the city I was thinking of him as victim number four
Ho the Riccardo case, but the lead investigator, Marty Freeman, had called to tell me that he had no idea what happened to the victim The tox report was normal The
“Boxer, this man should not be dead,” he told me
Claire had ruled thefull well that she was looking at a murder victim and couldn’t prove it
I was mired in what-the-hell, same as Claire, same as Marty Freeman There was a pattern that didn’t form a picture What could possibly be thein common?
Cops like to say, “If you know the why, you can figure out the who” The as a mystery But the killer—whoever, however, and for whatever reason—was stepping up his schedule
The first four victims had been killed within several ent, two victims had been murdered in the last week
I shared these thoughts with Claire and asked her, “What’s your report going to say?”
“Manner of death: ‘Hoht buttock’ Mrs Nugent’s blood just went to the lab,” she said “Let’s hope for a clue”
She wrote the husband’s contact information on her notepad, ripped off the top sheet, and handed it to me
Carl Nugent, room 982, Admiral Dewey Hotel
“For whatever it’s worth,” she said