Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake (лучшие книги без регистрации txt) 📗
Back in her room, she couldn’t sleep. She was worried that Jerry Grimes or Mike Galaz would call her back any time. She had nothing to show for this expensive trip except a gut feeling and a digital photo that could be downloaded by anyone.
Laura turned on the light. The only thing she’d brought to read was her mother’s files on the Tucson murders and the six chapters of Death in the Desert. Laura removed the files from her suitcase and slid out Alice Cardinal’s unfinished manuscript, held together by an industrial-size paper clip. She realized that she never did follow up with the detective on the Julie Marr case. There had been too much going on.
Laura skimmed through the chapter on Julie Marr, still feeling it was strange—almost creepy—that her mother could write about a girl Laura used to see daily at school.
Alice Cardinal’s book echoed much of what Laura had already read in the clippings. The car used in Julie’s abduction had come from A&B Auto Wrecking. Laura’s mother had interviewed the owner, Jack Landis.
Landis told detectives that the car in question, a 1955 Chevrolet sedan, had been one of the few vehicles at the junkyard that was driveable.
Probably he took it because it was parked outside the fence, Landis said, pointing at the tall chain link fence bordering the yard full of twisted, rusty car hulks. Landis explained that he also did muffler repair and that he used the orange and white car as a loaner car to people who needed transportation while they waited.
I guess he didn’t want to face Luke and Laura, he said, nodding to the two Dobermans inside the yard.
Had the killer stolen a car just to use in commission of this vicious and brutal crime? It seems likely that he did. The Tucson Police detective on the case certainly thought so.
Laura found herself drifting off to sleep. Whatever lessons she could learn from the murder of Julie Marr would have to wait.
“I want you to run somebody on NCIC for me,” Laura said when she reached Victor the next morning.
“Can’t you do it yourself? We’re a little busy here.”
“What’s up?”
“Lehman’s about to give it up.”
“What makes you think that?”
“His lawyer wants a meeting. This whole thing could unravel in the next couple of days. You really ought to be here.”
“I’ll try to hurry it up,” she said. “Do you have the lab report on the tire treads taken up on West Boulevard?”
“Hold on, let me look." She heard him shuffle papers. “Got a whole shitload of stuff from the lab yesterday. A lot to plow through.”
Hinting that without her there, it was twice as much work.
She waited as the paper shuffled for an inordinate amount of time, thinking that if she was wrong about Jimmy de Seroux and had wasted the DPS’s limited budget on a whim, Galaz wouldn’t back her up. She’d be on her own.
“Here it is,” Victor said at last. “They’re Michelins. XRVs.”
“What kind of tires are those?”
“Big ones. The kind you get on trucks, motor homes.”
“Anything else? Was he able to get the wheelbase?”
“I’m looking,” he said impatiently. She could tell he resented having to do it. “Here it is. Looks like it was a motor home. That narrows it down. There are only thousands of them all over Arizona.”
“I’m sending you photos of some treads I found out here. I’m also faxing you the photo of a possible suspect, his name is—“
“Suspect? Didn’t you hear a word I just said?”
She ignored that. “I’ll FedEx a copy of the original as soon as I can get it done. The guy’s name is Jimmy de Seroux.” She spelled it for him and gave him the registration number of his truck. “Be sure to run him on NCIC.”
“Can’t you do it?”
“I don’t have access to NCIC right at this moment.”
Silence. Then, “I’ve got to get going. Lehman’s lawyer’s gonna be here any minute.”
31
The Apalachicola Police Department offices took up the second story of City Hall near the Apalachicola River. From its proximity to the water, the building could have been a cotton warehouse when the town was a bustling port.
A giant standing fan dominated Chief Redbone’s office, blowing like a blizzard across the cluttered space.
A large man with thinning blond hair and a strawberry complexion, Clyde Redbone heaved himself out of his chair and held out a hand. In his late forties, more muscle than fat, he looked like a former linebacker.
“I’m Laura—“
“Cardinal. I know. Couldn’t forget a pretty name like that. My secretary told me you’d be coming by.” He directed her to a leather couch against the wall that had seen better days. “Sit down, take a load off.”
He skimmed his bulk expertly from behind his desk and aimed the standing fan at her. “How’s that?”
Gale force, but in this heat and humidity, necessary. “Thanks.”
“Something to drink? Coffee? Co’Cola?”
She asked for water and he filled a mug with water from the cooler. He sat down and folded his hands on the green felt blotter. He wore a short-sleeved shirt that exposed massive arms mottled with freckles run together under a nest of blond hair. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m interested in a man named Jimmy de Seroux. Do you know him?”
He leaned back and regarded her through watery blue eyes. Something going on behind them, but she couldn’t tell what it was. “I know Jimmy, but not well. Good piano player.”
“I’m trying to locate him.”
“Think he lives over on Fifteenth Street." He reached for the phone book.
“I know where he lives. I thought you could give me assistance.”
He stood up and reached for his hat, hooked on an old-fashioned hat stand beside the desk. “Why not?" He checked his watch. “Tell you what. It’s lunch time. I was just going to go down to the park and have my sandwich. We could talk there. I try never to miss my half hour outdoors.”
Girls’ voices from the stairwell, giggling and strident.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“Hi, Daddy!”
A couple of teenage girls—twins—clattered into the office on tall sandals. One blonde, one redhead. The blonde wore her hair long and straight, parted in the middle. She wore a short, flouncy skirt. The redhead wore short shorts, much more makeup, and enough chains to pass for Marley’s Ghost. Identical twins, but each of them had developed her own look. Laura guessed it was a way to maintain their individuality.
Redbone looked stricken. “Holy moly, you walked down the street like that?”
From the looks the girls gave him, Laura had the feeling he’d said words to that effect before.
“Can we take the car?” asked the blond one. “Graham wants us to help him look at boats.”
“You think that kid can afford a boat?”
Gum snapped. “Dad. We’re just looking.”
“Graham should be studying for the SATs, and so should you. By the way, this is Laura Cardinal from Arizona. That one who thinks she’s in the navel academy is Amanda, and this is Georgette.”
Georgette lifted her hand in a tiny, lacquered wave, Amanda rolled her eyes.
“Please? Can we have the car or not?” asked Amanda, for all her makeup and chains sounding like a southern belle in training.
“Yes, you can have the car. But you gotta be back by five. Your mother’s cooking roast chicken. Got that?”
They were already out the door, their thank you’s banging off the walls behind them.
Redbone shook his head. “Don’t ever have girls,” he said. “They’ll give you an ulcer, then break your bankbook.”
“There was a girl,” Chief Redbone said, in response to Laura’s question. He had to talk loud over the riding mower negotiating the lawn at the far end of Battery Park. They sat at a picnic table under a canopy of oaks, eating sandwiches bought from a deli on Market Street. Laura had asked the guy at the deli for a hoagie, and he’d looked at her as if she’d come from another planet. Chief Redbone interceded and got them over the language barrier. Next time she’d ask for a sub.
