I approached the nearest desk. A balding cop looked up from the report he was typing. I told him I had an appointment with Detective Durkin.

A cop at another desk looked up and caught my eye. “You must be Scudder,” he said. “I’m Joe Durkin.”

His handshake was overly firm, almost a test of masculinity. He waved me into a chair and took his own seat, stubbed out a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, lit a fresh one, leaned back and looked at me. His eyes were that pale shade of gray that doesn’t show you a thing.

He said, “Still raining out there?”

“Off and on.”

“Miserable weather. You want some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“What can I do for you?”

I told him I’d like to see whatever he could show me on the Kim Dakkinen killing.

“Why?”

“I told somebody I’d look into it.”

“You told somebody you’d look into it? You mean you got a client?”

“You could say that.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

A muscle worked along the side of his jaw. He was around thirty-five and a few pounds overweight, enough to make him look a little older than his years. He hadn’t lost any hair yet and it was all dark brown, almost black. He wore it combed flat down on his head. He should have borrowed a blow dryer from the guy downstairs.

He said, “You can’t hold that out. You don’t have a license and it wouldn’t be privileged information even if you did.”

“I didn’t know we were in court.”

“We’re not. But you come in here asking a favor—”

I shrugged. “I can’t tell you my client’s name. He has an interest in seeing her killer caught. That’s all.”

“And he thinks that’ll happen faster if he hires you.”

“Evidently.”

“You think so too?”

“What I think is I got a living to make.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”

I’d said the right thing. I wasn’t a threat now. I was just a guy going through the motions and trying to turn a dollar. He sighed, slapped the top of his desk, got up and crossed the room to a bank of filing cabinets. He was a chunkily built, bandy-legged man with his sleeves rolled up and his collar open, and he walked with the rolling gait of a sailor. He brought back a manila accordion file, dropped into his chair, found a photograph in the files and pitched it onto the desk.

“Here,” he said. “Feast your eyes.”

It was a five-by-seven black and white glossy of Kim, but if I hadn’t known that I don’t see how I could have recognized her. I looked at the picture, fought off a wave of nausea, and made myself go on looking at it.

“Really did a job on her,” I said.