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

realized what I was looking at, I closed up the room, put the boiler room back the way I found it, and left.”
    “Excellent,” LeDoux said.
    “Smokey’s had some experience working cases like this before,” Laura said.
    “Smokey?” LeDoux asked me.
    I smiled at him. “It’s a childhood nickname that seems to have stuck. My close friends and family use it.”
    LeDoux glanced from Laura to me and then over to McMillan. For the first time in the conversation, LeDoux seemed uncomfortable.
    McMillan templed his fingers and leaned back in the chair. “Bill is one of the most able investigators I’ve seen. We’re going to want him in that basement.”
    LeDoux frowned. He obviously wasn’t happy with the idea of supervision.
    “If nothing else,” I said, “I can move materials for you when you’re ready for that.”
    LeDoux frowned. “You believe there are other things to find down there?”
    “I hope there isn’t,” I said. “But there’s a lot of brick, and none of it has been done by a mason. It’s slap-dash.”
    His lips thinned. McMillan watched us. Laura leaned against me, saying nothing.
    “My examination of the foundation tells me the building has a full basement. But the brick walls off most of it.”
    “Unevenly,” LeDoux said.
    “And with no obvious plan, at least not one I could discern.”
    “In your short examination,” LeDoux said.
    “I wouldn’t even call it an examination,” I said. “I probably spent no more than five minutes in that hidden room.”
    “Good.” He sighed. “We have an uncontaminated scene then. You did well, Mr. Grimshaw.”
    He was patronizing me, but I didn’t mind. He was doing so not because of my color or my abilities, but because he thought I knew nothing about his field.
    I would let him think that. It was easier than trying to explain myself to him.
    A buzzer went off in the kitchen. Laura excused herself and walked there. McMillan stood as well, saying that he would help her.
    LeDoux turned sideways in his chair, so that he faced me more directly. “I do not mean to be rude, Mr. Grimshaw,” he said. “But I prefer to work unsupervised.”
    “I understand. I’m not going to supervise you. I’ll be helping where I can, but mostly, I’m going to be observing. You’re the criminalist. I’ll trust you to handle the evidence correctly. But I’m going to be investigating. We need to know what happened here, when and why.”
    “You have no idea at all?”
    “None,” I said.
    “No hints, no theories?”
    “None,” I said.
    “Except that this is criminal.”
    I folded my hands together to keep them calm. “I think that’s a fair assumption. Bricking three human beings into a wall is not a legal act.”
    “You think they were alive?”
    I hadn’t had that thought at all. The idea turned my stomach. “I have no idea. But I certainly hope not.”
    He nodded, once, as if confirming his own suspicion. I apparently had made assumptions that I hadn’t realized.
    “It’s not so criminal an act to brick bodies into a wall,” he said. “Perhaps they belong to unregistered aliens who died here or to someone who died unexpectedly. Perhaps this was a form of burial.”
    “That’s against the law , too,” I said.
    “Yes, but not so serious as murdering someone. You see?”
    “I do,” I said.
    “Miss Hathaway tells me you found someone to perform autopsies. I’m assuming he’s reliable.”
    “He is,” I said. “He will come to the site when we’re ready to release the bodies to him.”
    “I may want to supervise his work.”
    I couldn’t imagine Minton allowing anyone to supervise him any more than I could imagine LeDoux letting me tell him what to do.
    “He’ll probably let you observe,” I said.
    LeDoux smiled for the first time. It softened his face and made him seem like a kindly old professor instead of a man who specialized in crime scenes.
    “That’s the answer I wanted,” he said. “You were correct in your approach to