Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

As Timmons rose from the body, Becker walked to it, knelt, and looked at the nametag above the shirt pocket. Rice. Though he hadn’t known the man, Becker still felt a lump in his throat. He had, after all, spoken to him on the phone twenty minutes ago. After a pause Becker waved his gun barrel at the window. “That where he went?”

Spellman nodded. Though his voice had been fairly steady, his face was pale, his hands trembling.

Becker and Timmons exchanged glances; then Becker rose to his feet, holstered his pistol, and looked through the broken window. There was no construction site on this side of the building; when he leaned out the window, he looked down on a lighted city street. Thirty-two floors below, a crumpled figure lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by a growing crowd. For a second it looked as if the body might be wearing tennis clothes. Becker quickly dismissed that thought, blaming his poor eyesight. It was night after all, and the sidewalk was a long way down.

When he turned again to face the room, he saw Timmons helping Spellman to a chair. Watching them, Becker took out his cell phone and called Hendrix in the lobby. He told him the situation, then put the phone away and approached Officer Spellman. The man’s eyes were glassy and vacant.

“What happened?” Becker asked him as gently as he could. He was vaguely aware that the air conditioner had come on again.

“He killed Rice,” Spellman said in a monotone. “He killed him, then took a shot at me. I jumped behind the desk there.”

“You sure you’re not hit?”

Spellman blinked, then ran a hand over his chest and stomach in a gesture that would have been comical under other circumstances. “I don’t think so.”

“No struggle?”

“No time.”

“What happened next?” Becker said.

Spellman motioned with a lift of his chin. “He went through the window.”

Becker frowned. “Isn’t that safety glass?” he asked, studying the jagged hole.

“Beats me. He just put his head down and rammed through.” Spellman swallowed and said, “I never saw anything like it.”

“Okay, you just rest a minute.” Becker picked up the cell phone and punched numbers. “Hendrix? Free up one of the elevators, we’ve got a man coming down. Any sign of the bomb squad?... Well, when they do, send ’em up, quick. And see if you can kill that a/c, we’ve got a search to do here.”

He signed off and turned to Officer Spellman. “You go on down to the lobby, sport. I’ll tell your people you did good.”

The cop nodded dazedly but made no move to get up.

“You need some help?” Timmons asked him.

Spellman blinked, then focused on him and said in a faint voice, “No. No, I can make it. Thanks, guys.” He rose unsteadily to his feet, took a breath, and made his way out the door. Moments later Becker heard the elevator ding at the other end of the hall.

“What about the body?” Timmons asked.

Together they turned to look at Officer Rice lying dead on the floor ten feet away.

“He’ll get a hero’s burial,” Becker said. “But right now we’ve got work to do.”

Both of them took a deep breath and directed their attention to the office. It was pretty much in order except for the floor on the left-hand side of the room, which was strewn with books and boxes apparently taken from a line of storage bins and shelves along that wall. It was clear that the two other cops had indeed interrupted the bomber as he was preparing a place to plant the device.

“Spellman was right,” Timmons murmured, looking at the items scattered about on the carpet. “The bomb’s here somewhere.”

Becker nodded agreement. But something was nagging at him, something at the back of his mind.

“We should have a while, though,” Timmons was saying. A drop of perspiration ran onto his eye, and he brushed it away with the back of his hand. “Like you said, it’d be set for the morning rush hour, right?”

Even as Timmons spoke, Becker noticed the lamp again. The lamp worried him. If there had been no struggle, why was it broken? Had the suspect knocked it over in his dive through the window?

The cell phone rang. Timmons waited for Becker to answer it and, when he didn’t, answered it himself.

Becker was still staring at the fallen lamp. Not only was it broken, it was unplugged. Unplugged and lying in the middle of the floor. Becker frowned and concentrated, letting his eyes sweep the room. The open bins, cluttered shelves, carpet, window, walls—

“It’s the chief, sarge,” Timmons said.

Becker’s gaze stopped on two small holes in the wall just above the baseboard, beside the window. He walked over to examine them. They were bullet holes, spaced no more than an inch apart.

Bullet holes?

“Sarge,” Timmons said again. “The chief wants to talk to—”

Becker squeezed his eyes shut, searching his memory. Whatever was nagging at him had been there since they first entered the room and found the dead officer. And something else, too, something Spellman had told them...

His eyes snapped open.