Page 195 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

to me. They might not have been able to appreciate the finer shading
and detail, but it stuck in their memories.”
“You don’t consider the possibility that a doppelganger could have
had a similar design temporarily applied with water-resistant dyes?”
I wanted to sneer, but my upper lip was too busy suppressing
laughter to curl in the right direction. “No, because that would
require a non-Simulian confederate whose silence could never be
guaranteed this side of the grave; and the man at the front desk—
who admittedly might have dozed off intermittently through the
night—would have to be passed four times: twice each by Rommel
and his accomplice, coming and going. Our surveillance team was
parked right in front of the place. The scheme is just too unlikely and
prone to misadventure.”
Labelle looked unconvinced—her normal attitude, guaranteed to
unnerve the nervy and turn lesser men to putty. I could almost
tolerate it—further proof I needed to advance in the very near future
or forever regret my exciting career in law enforcement.
“Napoleon, another night-owl, was in an emergency room getting
his right wrist bandaged at midnight last Friday.” She stopped reading
to scowl at her computer screen. I pictured the poor thing wilting like
a flower in a time-lapse film. “X-rays were negative, but the
examining physician scribbled something here that looks like
‘swollen.’ Is that right?”
“It is. I talked to him, a young and overworked resident. He said
Napoleon’s injury was real. The symptoms were consistent with a
man striking an awkward blow with his palm against an unyielding
object moving toward him. When I questioned Mr. Simulian—who
still sported the elastic bandage twenty-four hours later—he said he
sustained the injury as he was about to push open a very solid
swinging door of a hotel kitchen. The detectives shadowing him
agree that he had an argument with a waiter in the dining room of the
Metropole. It concerned the national origin of a small bowl of
sturgeon eggs. Apparently unsatisfied with the pedigree produced by
the waiter, Napoleon stormed into the kitchen through the double
doors from the dining room. Our men parked outside could not react
fast enough to intervene. Sounds of violent struggle ensued. The
manager rushed toward the kitchen just as Mr. Simulian was trying to
get out, pursued by a large Samoan in an apron wielding a cleaver.

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