7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7 Read Online Free PDF

Clare?”
    “As always. With the wind at her back and in the right light, a knockout. The results please, Charlie. To answer the question you are hesitant to put to me no, Mrs. Saint Clare didn’t ask about you.”
    “I wasn’t going to ask that. Why would I?”
    Ike shrugged.
    “Okay, I have the data, but first, I have to tell you about the Director. He heard about Ruth’s accident somehow.”
    “Somehow?”
    “Hey, he’s a spy, for crying out loud, he heard. Anyway, he cornered me when I arrived at the office and said, and here I quote the Great Man as nearly and as accurately as I can, ‘After the business with the terrorists on the Chesapeake Bay last year, we owe him big time, so tell Schwartz we’re sorry for his troubles and that the resources of the CIA are at his disposal, night or day.’ Impressed?”
    “Oh, I am. What does he want?”
    “Tut, you have a suspicious mind, Ike, always have. He is only interested in your welfare. And, as I said, he hasn’t forgotten the Yom Kippur caper, you could say.”
    “And, as the Metro cop said last night, ‘yeah and I’m…’ who did he say he was?”
    “Matthew McConaughey. Who is a movie star or something. Unlike you and your obsession with them, actors and movies aren’t my thing.”
    “I only like the dead ones.”
    “I don’t think I’ll dissect that statement just now. So, moving on from the Director’s highly appreciated and extremely generous offer, the guys in the lab removed your tracking device and mapped everything that happened to your car in the previous twenty-four hours. They report your car received not one but two major impacts last night. The first, they believe was delivered at the rear end of the car,” Charlie glanced at the folder’s contents, “passenger side, and the second one, moments later when it broadsided the utility pole. Ruth was rear-ended. That’s what caused the smash-up.”
    “I guessed that. How far back did you say they checked?”
    “Just last night, twenty-four hours give or take. I thought that’s all you’d want. Oh, wait. You want to confirm that the car wasn’t hit before yesterday as well.”
    “Yes. I’ll need more. Nothing about the paint yet?”
    “They tried. Remember, we don’t do much in the auto accident line over at the Company. If we need a sophisticated analysis, we outsource it. Anyway, they couldn’t match the paint to any known vehicle manufacturer. Whoever or whatever hit her must have had a respray at some time. There is a complicated chromatographic analysis of the paint, however. If you can find another program to identify it, you might get lucky and locate the places it might have been done.”
    “That’s the plan. Thank you and thank the techs for the quick turnaround.”
    “You’re welcome. No thanks to the Director?”
    “You are joking, right?”
    “Yes and no. If he wanted to, he could have put the kibosh on the lab work, you know, but he didn’t. Give him a bit of credit, Ike, he may be otherwise motivated, but in his avuncular way he does still care about you.”
    “Noted.”
    “It would appear you are looking at a hit and run, Ike. You do realize how difficult they are to track down unless there were witnesses? There are garages and body shops all over this city that will gladly make any damage on a vehicle go away unreported for an appropriate amount of cash.”
    “I know that, Charlie. I am counting on the fact that this rear-end was not just an accident caused by a stranger who panicked and ran. I’m betting whoever did this had a plan all along. I just need to connect the dots to unravel it.”
    “This connect-the-dots puzzle looks more like pointillism than a picture of a bunny and none of the dots are numbered. Where do you start, Ike? Who would do this?”
    “Someone trying to send a message to Ruth and/or her committee to back off is my thought.”
    “Committee? Which?”
    “The textbook review committee, the one that will have people riled up