Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4) Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Annette Meyers
Tags: Mystery & Crime
strangled cry and stepped back into Martens.
“You know him?” Ferrante demanded.
She closed her eyes and breathed in sharply through her nose, forgetting instructions. Dead animal smells mixed with antiseptic. Biology lab, the frog pinned to the dissecting tray. Her groan was inadvertent. Grow up , she commanded. Grow up!
“Who was he?” Ferrante sounded impatient.
Wetzon looked at the face again. Even through a window, viewing a body on a slab was horrifying. He was naked and vulnerable. His left eye was blown out. Where it should have been was a double ring of two different shades of dried blood, pieces of bone, gook, and other things she didn’t want to give a name to. A black ribbon of caked blood came from his right ear.
“It’s Brian Middleton,” she said.
7.
“B RIAN NEVER SHOWED up at his new firm this morning,” Wetzon said. She was sitting in a waiting room of sorts, on a plastic chair, sipping orange juice from a Styrofoam container that Jennie Vose had supplied from her private refrigerator. Which made Wetzon wonder whether organs and other things sat on the shelves in mason jars next to orange juice and English muffins. Her hands shook, and a trail of orange liquid slipped over the lip of the container and dribbled through her fingers.
“What exactly do you do?” Martens was writing everything down in a small black notepad.
She felt a kind of déjà vu. Silvestri had asked her the same question when they first met four years ago after Barry Stark was murdered. “I’m a recruiter, a headhunter. I persuade stockbrokers to move from one firm to another.”
“You’re a personnel agency.”
“No. We don’t have to be licensed as personnel agencies do. We get paid a percentage of the broker’s gross commissions. Brian was one of my hires. Or rather, he would have been. He was to have started today at Loeb Dawkins.”
Ferrante had gone uptown to get Rona Middleton. She was next of kin. They were separated, not divorced yet.
“He didn’t call?”
“No. He just didn’t show. I spoke with him last night about nine-thirty. Everything was cool. I can’t figure what he’d be doing in the Conservatory Garden,” she said. “Especially on the day he was to start a new job.”
“Did he have a girlfriend over there?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” She finished the juice and tossed the container into a nearby brown plastic waste receptacle. Just like the big fee they now didn’t have and never would have, she thought. Smith would be wild.
“You want to give us a guess on time of death, Doc?”
Jennie Vose frowned. “Don’t hold me to it. I’d say maybe seven, seven-thirty A.M.”
“Look,” Wetzon said, “why would he go out for a walk in an isolated section of Central Park at that hour?” She stood and stretched her legs. She was getting stiff. “And in serious clothes. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Brian wasn’t stupid ... but he always carried a lot of money on him.” She remembered having lunch with him and then his walking her into Tiffany’s and peeling off wads of bills for a tennis bracelet for Rona. All diamonds. All retail. Top dollar. And she’d thought at the time that neither she nor anyone she knew would ever buy jewelry retail. New Yorkers just didn’t ... not even to show off.
Rona. Rona would get the business now. Clients feel safer with people they know. They would all come back to her. Rona would do well in her first year at Rosenkind, Luwisher, and Smith and Wetzon would do well because their compensation agreement with Rosenkind was based on Rona’s future production. That would please Smith no end.
And what about you, you mercenary bitch , she asked herself. She couldn’t put it all off on Smith. Leslie Wetzon liked making money, too. No doubt about it.
Dr. Vose excused herself, and Wetzon sat down and looked at Martens.
“You want some coffee?” Martens said it so halfheartedly that she laughed.
“No, thanks.” Hunger had
“You know him?” Ferrante demanded.
She closed her eyes and breathed in sharply through her nose, forgetting instructions. Dead animal smells mixed with antiseptic. Biology lab, the frog pinned to the dissecting tray. Her groan was inadvertent. Grow up , she commanded. Grow up!
“Who was he?” Ferrante sounded impatient.
Wetzon looked at the face again. Even through a window, viewing a body on a slab was horrifying. He was naked and vulnerable. His left eye was blown out. Where it should have been was a double ring of two different shades of dried blood, pieces of bone, gook, and other things she didn’t want to give a name to. A black ribbon of caked blood came from his right ear.
“It’s Brian Middleton,” she said.
7.
“B RIAN NEVER SHOWED up at his new firm this morning,” Wetzon said. She was sitting in a waiting room of sorts, on a plastic chair, sipping orange juice from a Styrofoam container that Jennie Vose had supplied from her private refrigerator. Which made Wetzon wonder whether organs and other things sat on the shelves in mason jars next to orange juice and English muffins. Her hands shook, and a trail of orange liquid slipped over the lip of the container and dribbled through her fingers.
“What exactly do you do?” Martens was writing everything down in a small black notepad.
She felt a kind of déjà vu. Silvestri had asked her the same question when they first met four years ago after Barry Stark was murdered. “I’m a recruiter, a headhunter. I persuade stockbrokers to move from one firm to another.”
“You’re a personnel agency.”
“No. We don’t have to be licensed as personnel agencies do. We get paid a percentage of the broker’s gross commissions. Brian was one of my hires. Or rather, he would have been. He was to have started today at Loeb Dawkins.”
Ferrante had gone uptown to get Rona Middleton. She was next of kin. They were separated, not divorced yet.
“He didn’t call?”
“No. He just didn’t show. I spoke with him last night about nine-thirty. Everything was cool. I can’t figure what he’d be doing in the Conservatory Garden,” she said. “Especially on the day he was to start a new job.”
“Did he have a girlfriend over there?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” She finished the juice and tossed the container into a nearby brown plastic waste receptacle. Just like the big fee they now didn’t have and never would have, she thought. Smith would be wild.
“You want to give us a guess on time of death, Doc?”
Jennie Vose frowned. “Don’t hold me to it. I’d say maybe seven, seven-thirty A.M.”
“Look,” Wetzon said, “why would he go out for a walk in an isolated section of Central Park at that hour?” She stood and stretched her legs. She was getting stiff. “And in serious clothes. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Brian wasn’t stupid ... but he always carried a lot of money on him.” She remembered having lunch with him and then his walking her into Tiffany’s and peeling off wads of bills for a tennis bracelet for Rona. All diamonds. All retail. Top dollar. And she’d thought at the time that neither she nor anyone she knew would ever buy jewelry retail. New Yorkers just didn’t ... not even to show off.
Rona. Rona would get the business now. Clients feel safer with people they know. They would all come back to her. Rona would do well in her first year at Rosenkind, Luwisher, and Smith and Wetzon would do well because their compensation agreement with Rosenkind was based on Rona’s future production. That would please Smith no end.
And what about you, you mercenary bitch , she asked herself. She couldn’t put it all off on Smith. Leslie Wetzon liked making money, too. No doubt about it.
Dr. Vose excused herself, and Wetzon sat down and looked at Martens.
“You want some coffee?” Martens said it so halfheartedly that she laughed.
“No, thanks.” Hunger had