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Post by skybright on Aug 20, 2007 2:04:14 GMT -5
Daws grimaced. "At least this guy got spared a little in the way of indignity."
She stepped closer to the corpse and peered at the noose of electrical cord around its neck. "I don't suppose he did it himself." She murmured quietly. "Guys who're going to kill themselves rarely hire masons to stand by and seal them behind brick walls afterwards. Seems kind of silly to do it this way, though -- why make it look like a suicide only to brick him up in here and leave him for eighty years?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 20, 2007 21:02:24 GMT -5
Alex made a face. "Don't ask me--I can't fathom what goes on in the mind of somebody who wants to kill anyone."
"Maybe they weren't trying to make it look like suicide," Grace pondered ingenuously.
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Post by skybright on Aug 20, 2007 21:59:16 GMT -5
Daws shrugged. "Yeah, maybe not -- but there's a lot easier ways to kill a guy than hanging him." She frowned. "Of course they might've killed him some other way, and just hung the body up afterwards . . ." she broke off with a shudder and a humorless chuckle. "I'm giving myself the creeps."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 20, 2007 22:17:39 GMT -5
"You think you've got the creeps?" Alex grimaced. "Just think of all the years me and Sid and Gracie have worked here, trying to give people a good time, with that down here..."
Sid came lumbering back down the stairs at that point. "I got hold a' Henry, an' told him about our little surprise. He said he can get here in less'n twenty minutes."
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Post by skybright on Aug 20, 2007 22:24:40 GMT -5
Daws nodded. "Okay. I'll try to finish poking around back here by then so Henry can do his thing. The sooner we can get this fella out of here, the better."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 20, 2007 22:30:28 GMT -5
"You said it." Sid scowled. "I think I'll get Consuela in here ta do the cleanin'. She's a one-woman army with a mop an' germ-killers."
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Post by skybright on Aug 20, 2007 22:40:23 GMT -5
Daws grinned wryly. "After eighty years I'm not sure there's much in the way of germs to worry about -- but there's sure enough dust to need a one-woman army."
She glanced over her shoulder at Sid. "Not sure I'd mention the ghost stories, though, if I were you."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 21, 2007 21:14:27 GMT -5
Sid snorted. "You're tellin' me. She'd wanna come down here an' do some kinda voodoo exorcism or somethin'."
Alex was looking interestedly at the shards of broken glass on the floor of the makeshift crypt. He turned to the detective with an inquisitive look. "Question, Daws: how exactly are you gonna find out if the Feds can match any fingerprints on those?"
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Post by skybright on Aug 21, 2007 22:10:43 GMT -5
Daws shrugged one shoulder, letting her gaze wander over the hanging corpse. "First step'll probably be hitting up Sergeant Bell." She remarked, "I'll want to ask him if the NYPD has any records left from that far back, anyway, and he's got a few contacts with the Feds he might be able to call in on.
"If that doesn't work, I suppose I'll see if Jai can hack them. I know he's cracked government stuff before, though I don't know if he's ever specifically tried the federal fingerprint databases."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 21, 2007 22:22:52 GMT -5
"That's if there's even any prints ta check," Sid pointed out. "With our luck, whoever was swillin' outta that bottle had gloves on.
Grace blinked. "So you really think this guy Rizzo's partner killed him to take over the business?"
"Racket, not business," Sid corrected. "Makes sense--but I can tell ya from experience, we dunno half a' what went on between Rizzo an' everybody he dealt with. Coulda been a hundred people we never heard of had reasons ta rub him out."
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Post by skybright on Aug 21, 2007 22:27:26 GMT -5
"And no corpse would've made it difficult to figure out which one of them might've done it, even back then." Daws frowned and tilted her head thoughtfully, still only observing the body.
"You know anything else about this guy, Sid -- I mean, any stories about his habits or quirks or the company he kept, anything like that?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 21, 2007 22:35:10 GMT -5
The ex-enforcer frowned and scratched the back of his head. "I just heard stories Tony's bunch usedta pass around--they like those ol' tall tales about the 'good ol' days', ya know. An' some things from a coupla books.
"Fats Rizzo was a pretty average greaseball. Drank a lot--but never his own rotgut. Smoked nasty cigars. Ran around with a lotta showgirls that thought he was pretty disgusting, but wouldn't say it so long as the diamonds an' furs kept comin'." Sid shrugged. "That's about all. Guys like that don't exactly keep a diary a' who they're busy cheatin' an' stealin' with--or from."
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Post by skybright on Aug 21, 2007 22:43:42 GMT -5
"Sounds like a real charmer." Daws remarked dryly. Then she shrugged and carefully set Sid's old camera to one side. "Well, all right. Guess there's no use putting it off."
She cracked her knuckles and stepped closer to the body, then paused and gave it a speculative glance. "Sorry, Rizzo or whatever you went by," she said, "Don't imagine you'd be much crazier about my going through your pockets than I am."
With that, she gingerly reached into the outside pockets of the corpse's voluminous pinstriped suitcoat, feeling around carefully for anything that might be left.
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 21, 2007 22:51:23 GMT -5
Without any visible hesitation, Sid moved over to join Daws in that task. He patted the body down with a thorough efficiency that hinted at some experience in handling corpses. No one was eager to ask what that experience might have entailed.
"Hey... here's somethin'." From a pocket, Sid brought up an age-yellowed rectangle of stiff paper. "It's a business card fer some kinda doctor. Well, makes sense a guy that fat'd be havin' some problems with his health, I guess."
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Post by skybright on Aug 21, 2007 23:05:34 GMT -5
Daws brightened. "More to the point, it gives us the name of at least one guy he was interacting with around the time he died." She shrugged and glanced back at the body. "Of course, I imagine the doctor's probably long-gone, himself -- but it's something, anyway. What's the card say, exactly?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 22, 2007 20:28:48 GMT -5
"Not much." Sid squinted at the card. "It says 'M. H. Pendergast, Specialist'. An' it has an address in a high-class part a' town."
"I wonder what kind of 'specialist' he was," Alex remarked.
Sid shrugged. "If he was hangin' out with bootleggers, I don't blame 'im fer not spellin' out what he specialized in. 'Member the Saint Valentine's Day massacre? One a' the guys they mowed down was an eye doc that just liked rubbin' elbows with the mob."
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Post by skybright on Aug 22, 2007 21:26:04 GMT -5
"They weren't joking when they said bad company can be murder." Daws murmured quietly.
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 22, 2007 22:00:05 GMT -5
"Ain't it the truth." Sid turned to Grace. "Hey, Gracie, maybe ya could go wait fer Henry an' bring him down when he gets here."
"Sure," the singer chirped, and scurried away, no doubt content to be away from the presence of the corpse.
Daws and Sid continued their cursory examination of the scene for the next fifteen minutes, until Grace returned with Henry in tow. The undertaker came briskly down the steps, with a bright and inquisitive expression that quirked when he first saw the hole in the wall.
"Well, this is a fine thing, Sidney--running a private crypt behind my back," he remarked whimsically, if a bit morbidly.
Sid moved his shoulders restlessly. "Believe me, Henry, it was behind my back too. This guy's been in there since before the Depression, an' nobody the wiser."
"Have you any idea who he is?" Henry inquired.
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Post by skybright on Aug 22, 2007 22:04:25 GMT -5
"We think it's a guy by the name of Fats Rizzo." Daws replied, "Used to own the place until he disappeared during Prohibition." She grinned crookedly. "He's also rumored to have been haunting the place since."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 22, 2007 22:25:03 GMT -5
"Oh. One of those." Henry raised an eyebrow. "You'd be surprised how many times remains have turned up in old buildings in this city. Ah..." He glanced at Sid. "It's rather customary to call the police in these cases, but I assume you know that. And I can imagine why you wouldn't care to."
Sid grunted. "Yeah... I don't need more trouble. Anyway, this wall's been here long as anybody can remember, so whoever messed with this guy oughta be long gone by now. Daws is gonna see what she can dig up, though."
"I wish you luck." Henry regarded the hanged figure thoughtfully. "Of course, it isn't the easiest thing in the world to get rid of a body, even after eighty years. You don't suppose he'd mind cremation?"
"Nah." Sid grinned crookedly. "I hear Rizzo always figured he'd fry one day--he was just expectin' a different kinda cooker, so I guess it don't make much difference."
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