Killing Zone by Rex Burns

the evidence takes us.”
    “Sure—yeah. That’s the job, I guess. But we’d better go real carefully. If you think the councilman had a little something doing at night and the wife did a little something to get even, let’s be damned careful how we dig into it.”
    Wager looked at the man’s worried profile; the downward slope of loose flesh under his brief chin matched the slope of his forehead. “This isn’t a parking ticket, Stubbs. It’s murder. We catch murderers.”
    “Don’t play the hard-ass with me, Wager. I’ve put in my time on the street. I know damned good and well how much backup a cop gets when he stirs up crap about some V.I.P.: none. You want to stick your neck out, go ahead. But don’t drag me along with you.”
    “You chose Homicide, Stubbs. If you can’t take the heat, move on.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I can take more heat than you can. But I was warned about you, man. They told me you got a thing about fucking up your career. Well, don’t fuck up mine, that’s all. That crap you handed Wolfard this morning about sitting around on our ass. Now you’re coming up with some shit about a city councilman and his wife. I don’t want to get burned because of you, man.”
    So Stubbs had been warned against him. By “them.” Screw Stubbs. Screw them. Screw all of them together. Wager knew what good police work was, and you didn’t get it by sucking around afraid to do the job. “Just do what you’re supposed to, Stubbs. Your ass’ll be covered.”
    “Yeah—right. Just trust you.” They rode in tense silence for a block or two. Finally, in a quieter voice, Stubbs said, “Besides, there’s still a dozen possibilities, and we’re just getting started on all the guy’s contacts. Let’s check them out before we start saying the guy was screwing around on his wife.”
    “That’s what we’re doing.”
    “How many contacts you figure he had? Two hundred? You figure he talked to two hundred people the day he was killed?”
    “Maybe.”
    “It’d be a hell of a lot easier if the guy’d been a hermit.”
    That was true; a victim who had as many contacts as Green made things tough on detectives who were trying to trace the frayed ends of his life. The easiest way, of course, was to start with the last known sighting of the dead man and work back, and that’s what they were doing now. Wager peered down the street cluttered with commercial trucks and a few signs identifying the various buildings. It was a region of light industry, the kind of area that had a lot of one-story square buildings set back behind chain-link fences of varying heights. On weekends and after working hours, the street and the parking lots would be deserted; now, in late morning, the lots were filled and more cars and light trucks sat at odd angles just off the pavement, while heavy trucks growled slowly to and from loading docks. Little money was wasted on advertising for the stray retail customer, and less on placing street numbers where they could be seen.
    “Is that it?” Stubbs pointed to a dun-colored building that sat behind its own fencing. A sign half-hidden under a leaning slab of plywood said -ACO .
    “Let’s try it.”
    Stubbs swerved onto the graveled apron that served a long series of high, square doorways to coast past a line of vehicles and stop at a door that seemed to lead to an office. A small sign on the door repeated the name, VITACO .
    “Yeah, help you men?” A black youth with a pencil behind his ear looked at them across the counter and scratched at something on a clipboard.
    “Are you one of the company officers?”
    “What?”
    Wager repeated the question and the young man laughed. “Naw, I’m the head shipping clerk; this is the shipping office. You want the business office—that’s around on the other side.”
    They followed his directions to a quieter hall of the building and a boxy office. Just inside the entry, two potted plants caught what sun spilled through the