Read Online Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf - Free Book Online
Authors: Gary K. Wolf
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figure the wife?”
“That would be my first guess. It would also explain how the killer got out without sounding the alarm. Since Jessica had lived here with the rabbit, she must know the code. She could easily have turned the system off and walked away.”
“Very logical,” I said politely. “Congratulations on your sound reasoning. You’ve overlooked only one teeny problem. According to Roger, he’d asked Jessica to meet with him many times before, and she had consistently refused. Why should she suddenly accept his offer now? When I talked to her yesterday, she made it quite clear she had no intention of pursuing a reconciliation. I suggested a get-together between her and Roger, and she gave me a firm no.”
Cleaver seemed quite relieved when another sergeant came up and saved him from having to tiptoe out of the corner he’d painted himself into. The sergeant showed Cleaver two items, both encased in plastic bags. One was the .38 pistol from Roger’s nightstand. The other was a hunk of metal, the fatal bullet, judging from the size of it. “One shot missing from the thirty-eight,” the sergeant said to Cleaver, but Cleaver took more of an interest in the slug.
“Hey, Butch. Ever see one like this?” He held the bullet where I could inspect it.
It looked like it had started life as a perfect sphere before running into Roger Rabbit and a wall. “Seems to be an old-fashioned musket ball from a black-powder long-rifle or a flintlock pistol.”
“That’s my guess, too. You run into any antique gun collectors in this case?”
“Can’t say I have.”
Cleaver returned the sack to his sergeant. “Process them both through ballistics,” he instructed.
Cleaver picked up Roger’s cigar box, opened it, and saw the carrots inside. His granite jaw cracked upward slightly at either end of his mouth. Poor guy. But that’s what happens when you hang around with ‘toons all day. You start to develop a sense of humor. Next thing you know, nobody takes you seriously anymore, and you wind up laughing yourself straight into the morgue. “The deceased have any enemies you know of?” asked Cleaver.
I shrugged. “Who could hate a rabbit?”
Just then another police car squealed up outside. The rear door opened, and out came Captain Rusty Hudson. He worked the human side and had a well-earned reputation as the most feared kind of law-and-order fanatic, one with a self-starter but no brake. He wrapped up his assignments so quickly and so neatly that he routinely had the lowest active case load of any human detective. I wondered why the department had sent its superstar to investigate a case involving a dead rabbit.
Hudson came inside, took a look around, and saw me. “Finally found your level down here with the rest of the crazies, huh, Valiant?”
“Nice to see you again, too, Captain,” I replied.
“What can I do for you, sir?” asked Cleaver. Even though they held the same rank, the department’s age-old unwritten law required a ‘toon officer to defer to a human, and everybody who knew Hudson knew he would make life extremely miserable for any ‘toon colleague deviating from tradition.
“When I heard the report about this Roger Rabbit character being killed,” said Hudson, “I figured I’d better shag it right over here before your bunch gets too far into their search. No offense, but I’ve had lots of problems with the ‘toon side losing evidence on me before.”
“What kind of evidence you after?”
“A thirty-eight-caliber revolver, maybe has one shot gone. You find anything like that when you tossed this place?”
Cleaver nodded. “Sure did. Upstairs in the nightstand. One bullet fired. I sent it to ballistics. Why? You got something on it?”
“I have reason to suspect it was the murder weapon in a human homicide last night.”
“A human homicide? Who?” I asked.
Hudson looked at me the way people look at escargot when they find out that means snails. “You got a reason to
“That would be my first guess. It would also explain how the killer got out without sounding the alarm. Since Jessica had lived here with the rabbit, she must know the code. She could easily have turned the system off and walked away.”
“Very logical,” I said politely. “Congratulations on your sound reasoning. You’ve overlooked only one teeny problem. According to Roger, he’d asked Jessica to meet with him many times before, and she had consistently refused. Why should she suddenly accept his offer now? When I talked to her yesterday, she made it quite clear she had no intention of pursuing a reconciliation. I suggested a get-together between her and Roger, and she gave me a firm no.”
Cleaver seemed quite relieved when another sergeant came up and saved him from having to tiptoe out of the corner he’d painted himself into. The sergeant showed Cleaver two items, both encased in plastic bags. One was the .38 pistol from Roger’s nightstand. The other was a hunk of metal, the fatal bullet, judging from the size of it. “One shot missing from the thirty-eight,” the sergeant said to Cleaver, but Cleaver took more of an interest in the slug.
“Hey, Butch. Ever see one like this?” He held the bullet where I could inspect it.
It looked like it had started life as a perfect sphere before running into Roger Rabbit and a wall. “Seems to be an old-fashioned musket ball from a black-powder long-rifle or a flintlock pistol.”
“That’s my guess, too. You run into any antique gun collectors in this case?”
“Can’t say I have.”
Cleaver returned the sack to his sergeant. “Process them both through ballistics,” he instructed.
Cleaver picked up Roger’s cigar box, opened it, and saw the carrots inside. His granite jaw cracked upward slightly at either end of his mouth. Poor guy. But that’s what happens when you hang around with ‘toons all day. You start to develop a sense of humor. Next thing you know, nobody takes you seriously anymore, and you wind up laughing yourself straight into the morgue. “The deceased have any enemies you know of?” asked Cleaver.
I shrugged. “Who could hate a rabbit?”
Just then another police car squealed up outside. The rear door opened, and out came Captain Rusty Hudson. He worked the human side and had a well-earned reputation as the most feared kind of law-and-order fanatic, one with a self-starter but no brake. He wrapped up his assignments so quickly and so neatly that he routinely had the lowest active case load of any human detective. I wondered why the department had sent its superstar to investigate a case involving a dead rabbit.
Hudson came inside, took a look around, and saw me. “Finally found your level down here with the rest of the crazies, huh, Valiant?”
“Nice to see you again, too, Captain,” I replied.
“What can I do for you, sir?” asked Cleaver. Even though they held the same rank, the department’s age-old unwritten law required a ‘toon officer to defer to a human, and everybody who knew Hudson knew he would make life extremely miserable for any ‘toon colleague deviating from tradition.
“When I heard the report about this Roger Rabbit character being killed,” said Hudson, “I figured I’d better shag it right over here before your bunch gets too far into their search. No offense, but I’ve had lots of problems with the ‘toon side losing evidence on me before.”
“What kind of evidence you after?”
“A thirty-eight-caliber revolver, maybe has one shot gone. You find anything like that when you tossed this place?”
Cleaver nodded. “Sure did. Upstairs in the nightstand. One bullet fired. I sent it to ballistics. Why? You got something on it?”
“I have reason to suspect it was the murder weapon in a human homicide last night.”
“A human homicide? Who?” I asked.
Hudson looked at me the way people look at escargot when they find out that means snails. “You got a reason to
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