When Graveyards Yawn, G. Wells Taylor [a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT] 📗
- Author: G. Wells Taylor
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Book online «When Graveyards Yawn, G. Wells Taylor [a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT] 📗». Author G. Wells Taylor
One of the investigators in his long black coat turned quickly toward me. It was Cane. His glance was as sharp as his omnipresent toothpick.
“Not a pretty sight. Jesus, Wildclown. I’d swear you look pale. How goes your spook baby case?”
“This is related,” I said. I was surprised to see a strange expression convulse his features.
“Related is it?” He laughed without humor. His eyes flashed at his fellow Inspectors with angry timidity. “This is an Authority restricted investigation. You’re not supposed to be this close.” He walked me away from the corpse, snarling. “You didn’t like Mr. Adrian, did you?”
I caught his drift. “I don’t dislike anyone that much. Come on, what did you call me out here for? Not for some lame attempt to implicate me. What do you have?” I felt cocky. I was sure that Cane had some strange stake in all these occurrences.
“I didn’t call you, asshole.” He stared hard.
I winked. Cane looked angry.
“We got an anonymous call about three hours ago. Said we’d find Richard Adrian wandering the highway. It…” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder at ‘it.’ Cane continued. “It is off the highway enough that your average motorist wouldn’t recognize what it is. We don’t know how long he’s been here. Autops boys are looking into it. They’re working on a positive genetic match from blood and hair samples. Poor fucker’s out of Blacktime! We got a wallet, but that’s shit.” He paused and winced evilly. “What do you know about Van Reydner?” He leveled and fired his gaze at me.
“Same thing you know. She’s gone. Maybe she took Adrian out. Who knows? She had a streak of the black widow in her. But that case is closed. I’ve been paid. It’s over. You find her. Maybe she’s gone somewhere to raise a family.”
An odd look grabbed Cane’s features. His face paled where it huddled beneath his hat like a humpbacked toad. His eyes flashed to either side of me. “You’ve stepped too far. Wildclown, you just did, right there.” He jerked his thumb like a dagger. “Beat it. Now!” His thick lips grinned around the brass toothpick.
I stood my ground for a minute, staring at Cane. I thrust Tommy’s jaw at him. “I’ve got a funny feeling about you.” I didn’t point a finger at him; I knew he’d break it.
Cane only smiled a smile that has been worn by every abuser of authority since the Beginning. He snarled. “Are you one of these shit heads who enjoys life for the moment, paying no attention to the future?”
“I guess you could say I was one of those shit heads. I grab life by the balls and squeeze.” I showed him arrogant teeth. I was trying to understand his sudden vehemence. Had he wanted to talk? Or did he want to show me something? Or look for a reaction? Regardless, I would never go on another date with Inspector Cane.
“Enjoy it while it lasts!” he snapped, and then turned away.
I suddenly felt a presence behind me—then swung my head to look at an Enforcer’s thick chest plate. “Small world isn’t it.” I pushed against him. His gun belt removed a yard of skin from my back. “We just had a tiff. I’m a little upset.” I felt I had already pushed my luck far enough for one evening, so I beat a wise retreat to the Chrysler.
The door cast a Swiss cheese shadow on the damp asphalt as I climbed in. Before I uttered a word to Elmo, a woman’s face appeared at the window. Her glasses were thick and heavy, held up by a pointed nose that looked too thin for the job. Her hair was straight, and plain—cut in a very functional and not wholly unattractive bang that swooped down as it circumnavigated her skull. The occasional white hair crawled through it like spider web. She had a real librarian look to her.
“Mr. Wildclown, right?” She smiled with white teeth.
“How’d you guess?” My face went slack with feigned disbelief.
“I asked around. Seems you know a Malcolm Aird down at the paper. He told me a bit about you.” Her eyes slid through my face paint. There was something in her features. She didn’t just look—an expression of expectation appeared and was gone. Frowning, she studied my face. She half-smiled, then frowned again.
“Oh yes, Malcolm. How is he?” As she answered I tried to picture his mug—came up empty.
“He wasn’t kidding, that’s for sure,” she muttered, fumbling for a cigarette before glancing toward the ring of Authority. She whispered. “Can we grab a cup of coffee somewhere? I’d like to ask you a few questions. I thought it over, our last conversation; I think you played me for a fool. I’m Mary Redding.”
“If you wouldn’t mind a walk down a two-way street, I’d be glad. My office?” I tried to be nonchalant.
She agreed to follow us. Elmo drove west until we could get onto a turnpike east. We passed the scene again, slowing as the flares illuminated our tortured fenders. For a moment I glimpsed technicians sliding Adrian’s corpse onto a long strip of vinyl sheeting. Probably off to an Internment Facility. Suddenly a bomb went off. It was Ms. Redding. She started after us in an ancient Volkswagen Beetle with asthma. As we gunned away, I’m sure I felt Cane’s eyes boring into us.
“Well, Elmo,” I said, we’d left the flares behind. “Try not to lose Ms. Redding, if you can, and concentrate on keeping four wheels on the ground. It would be an exceptionally bad time to total the car.”
I watched concrete abutments pass quickly through our headlights.
Her calves might have been too fleshy for the average man, but for me, they held backbreaking possibilities. I’ve always found strength an attractive quality in women—and simplicity. She wore a blue corduroy frock dress that unzipped down the front. The act of sitting and crossing her legs had sent a chill through me that had little to do with Tommy.
Ms. Redding’s eyes were made from blue ice and were divided by a serious vertical line in her forehead. She was one of those enviable people who had the ability to hide all of her emotions. Her eyes acted as doormen and would allow only those feelings that had invitations. The flaw was the fine line between them. That was the gatecrasher. Through that came the chaotic moments, the flare-ups. I would keep my eyes upon that fold of flesh. Right now, her expression was of frank and somewhat obscene sensuality. When she dipped her head in such a way, I could feel the temperature in the room go up. She was so alive I could feel her heartbeat from across the room. Tommy’s erection showed approval. I folded my hands over it.
“The coffee’s ordered,” I said with a gesture toward the phone. “Cigarette?”
She shook her head, then drew a pack of her own from her purse. They were long, slim, and the strongest on the market. A lighter flared in her hands, the cigarette glowed.
“Where’s your partner?” Her eyes did a quick scan of the room. They looked up to the broken ceiling fan. I followed her gaze, didn’t see him up there.
“In the outer office, the waiting room.” I gestured with my cigarette. Ash fell from it, powdered on the corner of the desk and sprinkled the floor. So much for the suave act. “There’s an all night coffee shop down the street. It’s late, so we’ll be taking our chances with it, but they deliver anytime.”
“Everything is, these days.” Her words were clipped.
“Is what?”
“Everything’s open all night.” She smiled through a cloud of smoke like a hungry demon. Her head tilted. “Why haven’t I heard of you? Surely one of your cases has drawn enough attention to warrant a couple of lines in the Gazette.”
“Hot night, isn’t it.” I almost walked over to the window to open it. Instead, I slouched.
“They say it’s going to get hotter.” Her smile was all teeth.
“They say a lot of things.” I grinned back at her.
“They do.” She crossed her legs, drew in on her cigarette.
Elmo entered with a box containing six large Styrofoam cups. He set them on the desk. One day, I had to find the patience to use the coffeepot. We’d go broke entertaining this way.
“I paid the man,” Elmo said, scooping up one of the cups for himself, pulling the office door shut with his free hand. I knew he would take it back to his seat in the waiting room, drink it with abnormal speed and then continue to stare at the door. He might read one of his old newspapers.
“Thanks,” I said to his back. My eyes returned to Ms. Redding. “I don’t trust Authority—never have. Most of my cases begin quiet and end quieter. I’m not in the habit of telling Authority anything. Money is my game, not headlines. Detectives who get famous tend to get dead.”
“How about justice, are you into that?” Her legs crossed again; I caught a flash of silvery silk. My heart did a back flip.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling out a drawer and dumping my heels into it. “I mean, all these people, all the buildings, there must be a scrap of it somewhere. I guess you could call me an optimist.”
“Is that why you paint your smile on?”
My gut cramped around a mouthful of coffee. Tommy rattled awfully close to the surface. I must have let my guard down, because the lunatic managed enough control to curl my lip into a sneer. I fumbled for a cigarette to cover it.
“I’m sorry.” She climbed to her feet, grabbed a cup of coffee, and slid one round hip onto the desk to my left. “I didn’t mean to upset you—but it’s hard not to notice. What’s a big lug like you have to hide from?”
“Yeah,” I said in explanation. She had shaved her legs today and she wasn’t wearing nylons. “What did you want to talk about?”
Her smile faded. “Ah,” she said, dropping her eyes into my lap. “I thought we were going to be friends.”
“Why don’t we ease into it over a few questions.” If the erection thumping my chest said anything, Tommy was awake and listening and wanted to be friends. “How did you find out about Adrian tonight?”
She sighed in a heart-melting way, and carried her coffee back to the company chair. After crushing her cigarette in the ashtray, she said. “I’ve got a friend in Authority who tips me off when there’s action. He’s kind of a clusterfuck…” She breathed more smoke. “He wants me. Naked.”
My eyes slid to her knees again. “It takes a long time to get good contacts in Authority. How long have you been with the Gazette?”
She smiled. “Only about three months. Freelanced for years before that…but I was lucky, I guess. I met my contact when he tried to pick me up at a bar. I knew he was an asshole, but I was a reporter out of work, and you never know.”
“I guess hard work pays,” I said, then changed the subject. “You were at the Morocco for the Billings murder, and you found Cotton. You are a lucky girl.” I smiled this time.
“Same guy called me then, as tonight. This friend called me and said there’d been a murder the night before at the Morocco Building—the Billings murder. I went, looked around, of course Billings was already down at HQ by then, when my fotog stumbled on Cotton’s body. I picked up the story about drug dealing
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