Days of Rage: A Smokey Dalton Novel by Kris Nelscott Page A

reached me from the main room. Then Laura’s laugh, high and fluted, rose above them.
    Apparently, I was the last to arrive.
    I stepped into the living room and stopped, as I always did, mesmerized by the view. The room had floor-to-ceiling windows that showed Lake Michigan. At the moment, it looked gray and sulky. The sun would be down in about an hour, and the eastern sky was already taking on the shadows of twilight.
    “Smokey.” Laura stood up. She’d been sitting on the leather couch in the middle of the room. Her leather furniture was even more elegant than the furniture in the lobby. Plants dripped off every surface in the main room, which made it look like something out of Architectural Digest , while hiding the room’s astonishing comfort.
    Two men sat opposite each other on the large leather chairs. Drew McMillan faced me. He was wearing one of his stylish New York suits, with its wide jacket and slightly flared pants, and his black hair brushed the edges of his collar. He looked modern and expensive , as if he was the person this apartment had been designed for, not Laura.
    Across from him sat Wayne LeDoux. He was older than the man in the grainy newspaper photographs I’d seen. His hair had gone gray and his cheeks were jowly. His suit had some wear on the sleeves. From the conservative black wool and the narrow lapels, it was clear he’d owned the suit for more than a decade.
    I suddenly felt uncomfortable in my black slacks and white shirt. I hadn’t even thought to wear a suit.
    Laura came to my side. She was wearing long polyester slacks with bell bottoms. Her shirt flowed over the slacks like a short dress.
    “Mr. LeDoux,” she said. “I’d like you to meet our investigator, Bill Grimshaw.”
    It always sounded odd to hear her speak my fake name. Maybe it was the inflection in her voice, the way she emphasized the name Bill, just so that she would get it right.
    “You’re the man who found the bodies?” LeDoux’s voice was deep and authoritative. No wonder so many attorneys had praised him. With that voice, he sounded like an expert right up front.
    “Yes,” I said. “I freelance, and one of the things I do on occasion is inspect buildings for Laura.”
    “I’m sure you’re familiar with the corruption in the c ity of Chicago,” McMillan said to LeDoux. “It extends to the building inspectors, who usually get bought off.”
    LeDoux nodded. He stared at the scar running along the left side of my face as if he’d never seen anything like it. I clearly wasn’t what he had expected.
    Laura touched my arm and guided me to the couch. I sat down, and she sat beside me, making it clear just with her actions that she supported whatever I did.
    “We’ll have dinner in a few minutes,” she said. “I’m reheating. I ordered in.”
    I smiled at her. Laura could cook a few things, but she wasn’t a gourmet by any standard. It was probably best that she had bought food from a nearby restaurant.
    “Did you touch anything?” LeDoux asked me. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t referring to the food.
    “I found the hidden room, touched the locks, the doors , and the light switches. The wall had caved in on one side, and when I used my flashlight to peer inside, I saw the bones. It took me a second to understand what I was seeing. For some reason, the skulls didn’t register right away.”
    “Three of them,” he said.
    “Three skulls.”
    “On three skeletons?”
    “I think so,” I said. “I’m not sure. To my inexperienced eye, the bodies looked like they’d been tossed in this crawl space, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if all the parts were there or if there were extra parts.”
    McMillan grimaced. His specialty was corporate law, although I knew he had consulted the criminal defense attorneys in the New York office to get LeDoux’s name. McMillan just wasn’t used to this kind of detail.
    “But you touched nothing else,” LeDoux said.
    “As soon as I