Someone knocked on his door. "Notre Dame, you got a visitor."
    A man in a grey costume, complete with cloak, stepped in. "Dr. Drake?"
    He nodded. "And you would be...?"
    "I am Astro-Man."
    "Of course you are."
    Astro-Man, in turn, saw a powerfully built man at the desk, disfigured by a slightly hunched back. "I'd like to talk to you about an autopsy you did about a month ago, upon on Jack Christmas, he was the murderer of Peter and Hazel Turnbull."
    "Yes." He raised an eyebrow. Drake remembered that case; it was when he'd started having problems with Dr. Gold. The police had decided that Mr. Turnbull, a man in his early sixties and somewhat portly, had engaged in strenuous fisticuffs and in the grip of adrenaline had shredded Christmas' leather coat and some of Christmas himself before being shot. Since neither Turnbull had injuries to suggest they had been in a fight, Gold had spun a theory about how Christmas had been taken aback by the old man's unexpected strength. Drake had been of the opinion that another person must have been present, but that ruined the neat story of a heroic patrolman striking down a remarkably incompetent murderer, and received no attention.
    "I'm investigating the case, and some aspects of it worry me."
    "Really, why?"
    "Your autopsy was much more detailed than Dr. Gold's, and I was wondering... how do you think Jack Christmas died?"
    "I think Jack Christmas was shot by a patrolman."
    "Let me be more specific—what do you think happened to Jack Christmas before he died?"
    "Jack Christmas apparently engaged in fisticuffs with person or persons unknown. Currently theorized to be Dr. Turnbull by the New York City Coroners Department," he said with icy precision.
    "I see you guys are getting along fine..." the man who had let the costumed hero in closed the door.
    "If I could ask your personal opinion, not the Coroners Department's opinion, what would it be?"
    "He was engaged in fisticuffs with person or persons most obviously not the doctor."
    "That's the way it's looking to me as well." He cleared his throat. "What kind of wounds were there on Christmas' body besides the gunshot?"
    "Fingernail scratches suggesting he was grabbed and managed to break free. Remnants of his leather jacket show it had been shredded."
    "What do you think might have caused those?"
    "I have no evidence to comment in any direction on that."
    "Speculation?"
    "I have nothing to base speculation on," he shrugged.
    "A scientific man; I respect that."
    "And you are looking into the Turnbulls' murder because...?"
    "I believe that there is an injustice that has been covered up here. Not really in the interests of corruption, at least I don't think so at this point, but in the interests of closure on the part of the police department."
    Looking at the Turnbull case in the light of last night's events, Drake knew that abnormally high strength would be consistent with Christmas' wounds. So might other things, of course.
    "I guess that's everything," Astro-Man concluded. "If you can think of anything else, please call Angela Miller at the Times."
    "I believe I can do that, yes."
    "Thank you very much." He departed.
    Alone, Drake contemplated the morning and thought about who he knew among the police detectives who were at least somewhat sane and/or competent, and decided it might be worth his time to have lunch with Detective Vance Rutger.
    "What can I do for you?" Vance wanted to know as they settled into the booth.
    "I've got a question for you. I've got a description of some people, I'm trying to see if I can get it to fit, if you know anybody who's currently working in New York. Woman, severe clothes, tends to wear a bowler, working with a guy who's just absolutely huge?"
    "I don't know man," he shook his head. "That, you got me on. Man-woman pair, she's got a bowler hat on...?"
    Drake gave him all the details he had, scanty as they were.
    "What've you got 'em on?"
    "What I can prove or what I think?"
    "What can you prove?"
    "Not a damn thing," he admitted promptly.
    "What do you think?"
    "They dumped that body out by the junkyard last night."
    "Oh, yeah, read about that in the day's report. Constantine? Boy, there was a shlub. Want to know what I want to know? I run into Constantine before. He managed to get through the lock to get into that place seven years ago, knew where to set the fire to make sure that he'd take the building out to destroy all the evidence. This guy was dumb as they come, half punch-drunk most of the time—how the hell did he manage to get in through that? Because it didn't look like the door had been picked, and it looked like he knew what the patrol times were. I mean, how did he manage to pull off something that smooth? And then he burns the building down, okay, back to true form, Constantine leaves his prints there...."
    "Yeah? And apparently spends seven years being a very good boy in the pen," Drake concluded thoughtfully.
    "Like he's got something waitin' for him when he's getting out. Where'd those jewels go?"
    "No one knows. Not according to the files anyway. Certainly weren't on his body."
    "That one wasn't my case, but I helped out because I'd run into him before, but like I said, it was way too clockwork a thing up until the point where he stuck his hand in it. I don't think he had the stones to pull it off, but he let himself go up for it. If someone else had put him up to it or gave him the plans or whatever, he could have cut his time in half."
    Interesting. "What I can tell you right now is somebody big killed him, hit him one shot to the face, the rest of it was just to make it look like he was beaten up."
    Vance sat back with a speculative look. "Who's strong enough to kill somebody just by hittin' 'em once?"
    "Somebody with a fist about nine inches across, by the size of the dent left in his face."
    "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You read today's paper?"
    "Not yet. I got in early, and out late."
    "Gold's got you on that shift again? Yeah, here it is." He reached across to the next booth of the diner and leafed through the stack. "Angie Miller's piece in the Times. Apparently she's claiming there's some protection racket going down, but y'know, Horus is looking into it in his deeply mysterious, spooky way." He quirked a skeptical eyebrow. "But apparently whoever it was trashed a tailor shop last night, picked up an entire row of suits and threw it."
    "Hm. By the way, did you get a chance to meet our superhero last night?"
    Vance chuckled. "All I saw was the picture someone took of him."
    

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