I knelt to gather up the pieces, but squatted on my haunches to look up at him. “Why are you afraid to tell me what you saw? I got you away from the police. You saw how much trouble I took to keep you safe. Why do you think I would hurt you now?”

“I seeing nothing. I poor, I not a-a professor, but I know what be happening. I seeing someone, you telling police, they saying, ah, Egyptian boy, he terrorist, he killer. I seeing someone, and they killing me next. No, I seeing no person.” He flung the dish towel onto the kitchen table and fled into the interior of the rectory.

CHAPTER 43

Stiffed at the Morgue

I left the church feeling tense and jumpy. My conversation with Benji had confirmed my assumption that he’d seen Marc’s killer. And he’d managed to explain why he was afraid to report what he’d seen. I couldn’t exactly blame him; the law had shot Catherine Bayard in their eagerness to kill him. Why should he trust that I could keep them from executing him if he came forward to testify?

If I could figure out a way to get the justice Department off his back, maybe Benji would give me the information in exchange, but I didn’t have clever ideas about much of anything right now.

My day didn’t unfold in a way that made me any happier. Back in my apartment, I found a message from Bryant Vishnikov. He’d phoned only a few minutes after I left. Hoping that meant he had hot information, I dropped my coat and purse on the floor and returned his call at once. He interrupted an autopsy to talk to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me the city wanted an autopsy on your stiff?” “Hi, Bryant. Have a nice weekend? Mine was good, too, thanks, just the usual two hours under bright lights with three law enforcement agencies. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but, despite my winsome manners, the police aren’t my biggest admirers. They don’t share their hopes and wishes with me. When did they order the autopsy?”

“The paperwork came over from Bobby Mallory’s office yesterday afternoon. When I called to explain I’d already done it, as a private job, Captain Mallory not surprisingly wanted to know who for. He said you were at the meeting Sunday where they agreed to send Whitby here for a second opinion. And he was not happy that you hadn’t told him that you’d hired me on behalf of the Whitby family.”

“I was at that meeting,” I agreed. “As a suspect in hiding an Egyptian boy from the Feds, not as a participant in discussions about crime fighting. What did you find when you did the autopsy?”

“Damn you, Warshawski, don’t blindside me like this and then think I’ll tell you what I know.”

“And damn you, Vishnikov, for calling me up to yell at me instead of talking it through with me,” I said, thoroughly angry. “I hired you in good faith, I followed the protocol you outlined for getting the body to you through a private funeral parlor. What did you find?”