4

Garreth had never liked the morgue, not so much because death filled it as because it felt inhospitable to life. From the first required visits during training at the Police Academy, he had seen it as a place of harsh light and hard surfaces, where sound echoed coldly and people reflected distortedly in the glazed brick, stainless steel, and tiled floors. It reeked of death, an odor that pervaded everything, hitting him as he came in the door and lingering tenaciously in his nostrils for hours after he left. This year he had come to despise the place, particularly the storage room with its banks of refrigerated steel cabinets. No matter that he intellectually recognized the necessity of the morgue, and that the dead here served the living . . . every time he heard the click of the cabinet latch opening, the rolling bearings as the drawer slid out, he relived the nightmare when the face under the sheet was Marti's and half his soul had been torn away.

He stood with face set, ready to catch Verneau if need be, but although the salesman went deathly gray, he remained on his feet. "Oh, My God!"

The attendant lowered the sheet and they left the locker area.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Harry asked.

Verneau swallowed. "Last night. The exhibition hall closes at seven and we walked out together."

"Do you know what his plans for the evening were?"

"Eating out with conventioneers, I suppose. He did Monday night, and that was his usual practice . . . to make personal contacts, you know."

"Did he happen to mention any names, or where he was going?"

"I don't think so."

"A watch and ring were taken from him. Can you describe them?"

Verneau shook his head. "Maybe his wife can. She's in Denver." He ran his hands through his hair. "Oh, God; I can't believe it. This was his first trip to San Francisco."

As though that should be some charm against harm. Garreth said, "He had a large bruise on his neck. Do you remember seeing it last night?"

"Bruise?" Verneau blinked distractedly. "I—no, I don't remember. Who would do something like that? Why?"

Harry caught Garreth's eye. "Why don't I take Mr. Verneau back to the hotel and start talking to people there? You get on the horn to Denver P.D. and have them contact the wife. See if she knows his enemies. Tell them we need a description of his jewelry ASAP to put out to the pawnshops. Come on back to the hotel when you can."