"Christ, it's hot in here," John complained. "Can't you turn it down? What ever happened to the energy crisis?"

Railsback was one of those people who set the thermostat at eighty, then opened windows.

The lieutenant ignored Harald, one of his favorite pastimes. "You ain't going to believe the coroner."

"What'd hesay?"

Railsback lit up. It had been two years, but Cash still lusted after the weed.

"The guy was scared to death. Ain't that a bite in the ass? And he was dead less than an hour when they found him."

"Any marks?" Harald asked.

"On his back. Maybe fingernail scratches."

"Cherchez la femme."

"Eh? Damned college kids…"

"Means find the woman. He was a Jody. Somebody's old man got home early."

"And scared him to death?"

"Maybe he was the nervous type."

Cash intervened before the dispute could heat up. "I don't think it'll hold water, John, but it's an angle. Let's see what Smith and Tucholski got." The detectives who had worked the Shaw side of the block, he saw, had been back long enough to get the red out of their cheeks. Long enough for Tucholski, who looked like a slightly younger Richard Daley, to have fouled half the office with dense blue cigar smoke. Smith defended himself by chain-smoking Kools. Officer Beth Tavares, who was little more than secretary-receptionist for the squad, coughed and scowled their way.

"You guys get anything?" Cash asked.

"Pee-pneumonia."

"Frostbite, maybe."

"John thinks maybe he was visiting somebody's wife. Any possibles?"

Tucholski exhaled a stormcloud. "Broad at… shit. Middle of the block. Kid's got it in the book. What was her name?"

There were two Kids in the squad. Harald by Railsback's designation, Smith by Tucholski's. Both were in their late twenties.