Speak Ill of the Living by Mark Arsenault Page A

and the house in the background. Eddie’s skull felt like it was about to buckle.
    Eddie asked, “Is that what Brill was busting my balls about?” He shrugged, irked that TV news was beating him on a story he had cold. TV should
never
beat print. He felt like he was letting down the brotherhood of ink scribes. “What do you think, Lucy? Of course I read the goddam note.”
    Orr gave a disapproving little grunt. “I wish you could have told me differently.” She pointed in the lieutenant’s general direction. “Brill wants to arrest you for interfering with a police investigation.”
    â€œOh, come on,” Eddie complained, “That’s a bullshit charge.” His head was in a vise. His temperature was rising. Why couldn’t
somebody
make a caffiene patch or some gum for coffee drinkers who needed help between cups? He said, “The investigation didn’t even start until I called you.”
    â€œOf course,” she said. “But Brill can keep you in lockup, force you to pay for a lawyer—they ain’t cheap—make your life hell for twenty-four hours or so, till the charges are dropped.”
    She was right. Eddie calmed himself with a deep breath. He said, “Look, I’m not proud of what I did. But this is a big story—Crane admitted that he
made it up
as he went along for forty years. All those cases? When the district attorney hears this, he’ll shit his liver.”
    â€œHe already has,” Orr said quietly.
    They stepped out of the driveway, to let the black hearse drive by.
    Orr said, “In light of the Roger Lime fiasco, I’ve been assigned to investigate Crane’s death, and to determine what evidence there is that he falsified his reports.”
    Eddie whistled. “A big job.”
    â€œThe lieutenant said that you heard something, before you found the body?”
    â€œHe said that? I didn’t think he cared about what I heard.”
    â€œHe doesn’t, but I do.” She squinted at him.
    Eddie told her about the sound that he heard. She took notes. Then they retraced Eddie’s path around the house, to the back deck, and then into the barn. Detective Orr timed it at two minutes, fifteen seconds, give or take.
    â€œNobody chokes that fast,” she said, more to herself than to Eddie.
    â€œI thought hanging was instantaneous—broken neck.”
    â€œOnly from the gallows, when the body can drop six feet or so—and even then it’s not always instant,” Orr said. “No, Dr. Crane suffocated at the end of that rope, and that would have taken longer than two-fifteen. Hard to pinpoint time-of-death with body temperature on such a warm day, but he was probably alive within the hour you found him.”
    They walked back to the driveway. The pressure on Eddie’s head had stabilized. He liked Detective Orr’s methodical style. She was the constant drip of water that eventually wore away a stone. Eddie had more information that any other reporter on the story. If he could get a cup of coffee and a telephone line in the next thirty minutes, he’d be okay.
    â€œSo either I imagined a door slamming,” Eddie said, “or somebody ran out of the garage when I came calling for Crane.”
    Detective Orr was quiet a moment. Then she said, “Could have been neighborhood kids, here to steal a bike.”
    â€œYou don’t believe that.”
    She gave him the fake smile he hated.
    ***
    The TV was on in the Perez Brothers diner. The place was packed with the lunch crowd, mostly third-shift factory workers ordering their first meal of the day: cheese omelets and Budweiser. Four men were engaged in an animated argument in Spanish, either about Massachusetts politics or the metric system—Eddie wasn’t sure.
    He pounded the story into his laptop.
    Bobby Perez refilled Eddie’s coffee mug. “How can you write with all this noise, man?” he