Armageddon Rag Read Online Free PDF

turned off the main road some time back and were winding their way through a thick stand of woods, all orange and rust in the late afternoon light, on a narrow dirt track. The car was riding roughly, but Sandy spread his notebook on his knee and stared down at some of his questions. “You think the killer was local?” he asked.
    Parker spun the car deftly around a sharp turn. “It’s doubtful. Lynch kept to himself pretty much. This damned road ought to tell you that much. He liked his privacy, I guess. Oh, I suppose there was some friction between Lynch and those who had dealings with him. I mean, he didn’t exactly blend in. But nobody had any reason to go
kill
him, much less do it… well, the way it was done.”
    “Cut his heart out, you mean?” Sandy said, making a note. The motion of the car turned his handwriting into a scrawl.
    Parker nodded. “This is Maine. That’s a New York kind of thing to do. Or maybe California,” he added thoughtfully.
    “Did they find it?”
    “The murder weapon?”
    “The heart.”
    “No. Neither one.”
    “All right,” Sandy said. “So it wasn’t local. Any suspects, then? You must be investigating someone.”
    “Well, we’re playing with a couple of theories. Nothing really seems to fit, though. We thought maybe robbery at first. Lynch might have been washed up in the music business, but he was still rich as hell. Except there’s no evidence that anything was taken.”
    “You’re forgetting the heart,” Sandy said.
    “Yeah,” said Parker, noncommittally. “The other thing we’re thinking is that maybe drugs were involved somehow. Lynch had a couple of convictions, you know.”
    Sandy nodded. “He supplied hash and coke to his groups. That’s well known. Does it tie in?”
    “Oh, maybe. Rumors were that Lynch had lots of wild parties. Rumors were he kept drugs on hand. We didn’t find any. Maybe somebody killed him for his stash.”
    Sandy wrote that down. “OK,” he said. “What else?”
    The deputy shrugged. “There’s some other funny things about this murder.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you. We’re there.” They swung around another curve and over the crest of a hill, and suddenly there was Jamie Lynch’s house ahead of them. Parker pulled the car to a halt on the gravel of the circular driveway, and Sandy climbed out.
    Surrounded by woods on all sides, the house sprawled comfortably amid the riot of autumn foliage. It was a modern, tasteful place, built of red-gray stone and natural wood, with a red flagstone patio to one side and a large outdoor deck above it. A dozen steps of unfinished wood led from the base of the drive to the front door. All the windows were tightly shuttered. A large tree was growing through the roof.
    “There’s a little creek runs through the living room too,” Parker volunteered. “This place is even more impressive at night. Lights up all around here.”
    “Can we go inside?”
    Parker extracted a set of keys from his jacket. “That’s why we’re here.”
    They went in the front door. The interior was wood-paneled and deeply carpeted. Each room was on a slightly different level, so they went up and down small three-step staircases constantly and it was hard for Sandy to decide how many floors he was dealing with. Parker gave Sandy a quick tour. There were skylights, stained-glass windows, and—as advertised—a creek running through the living room, around the trunk of the old tree. The kitchen was modern and clean. The four bedrooms had water beds, mirrored ceilings, and fireplaces. And the sound system was incredible.
    Lynch had an entire wall of records, and speakers mounted in every room. It could all be operated from the living room, the master bedroom, or Lynch’s office, Parker said. He showed Sandy the nerve center, hidden behind a sliding wooden panel in the vast living room. It looked like the bridge of the starship
Enterprise
. The main speakers were taller than