Fiddlers Read Online Free PDF Page B

looks like,� Genero said.
    �That�s awfully young to be starting work.�
    �I started work when I was fourteen,� Parker said.
    He was tempted to add that he�d got laid for the first time when he was sixteen.
    �You know,� Clara said, �while I was looking through the files for you��
    Both detectives suddenly gave her their undivided attention.
    ��I came across the records for another Hendricks. I don�t know if they�re related or not, but he was here at about the same time, entered a year later.�
    �What�ve you got on him?� Parker asked.
    * * * *
    Karl Hendricks was still serving the twelfth year of a fifteen-year rap. He�d been denied parole twice - the first time because he�d physically abused a prison guard, the second because he�d stabbed another inmate with a fork. He could not have been older than fifty-three or -four, but at six thirty that Monday evening, when he shuffled into the room where Genero and Parker were waiting for him, he looked like an old man.
    �What is this?� he asked.
    �Your sister was murdered,� Parker told him subtly.
    �Yeah?� Hendricks said.
    He seemed only mildly interested.
    �When�s the last time you saw her?� Genero asked.
    �Be a real miracle if I did it, now wun�t it?� Hendricks said. �Sittin up here in stir.�
    �We�re wondering who did,� Parker said.
    �Who cares?�
    �We do.�
    �I don�t.�
    �So when did you see her last?�
    �She came to visit on my forty-fifth birthday. Brought me a cake with candles on it. No file inside it, mores the pity.�
    Sometimes, in prison, a man developed a sense of sarcastic humor. Sometimes the humor was funny.
    �When was that, Karl?�
    �Nine years ago. I�d just started serving this bum rap.�
    In prison, everyone was serving a bum rap. Nobody�d ever done the crime for which he�d been convicted. Nobody.
    �Nine years ago,� Genero said, and nodded, thinking it over.
    It seemed unlikely that Alicia Hendricks would have mentioned anyone following her nine years ago. Nine years was a long time to be following someone. Nine years was what you might call a Dedicated Stalker. Genero asked, anyway.
    �She mention anyone following her?�
    Hendricks stared at him blankly.
    �Some bald-headed guy following her?�
    �No,� Hendricks said, and shook his head unbelievingly. �That why you came all the way up here? Cause some bald-headed guy was following her?�
    �We came all the way up here because your sister got murdered,� Parker said.
    �I�m surprised somebody didn�t kill her a long time ago,� Hendricks said.
    �Oh?�
    �The friends she had. The company she kept.�
    �What kind of company?�
    �Half of them should be in here doing time.�
    �Oh?�
    �In fact, her first husband did do time, but not here.�
    �Husband? We�ve got her as single.�
    �Married twice,� Hendricks said. �Both of them losers.�
    �Went back to using her maiden name, is that it?�
    �Wouldn�t you?�
    �Tell us about these guys.�
    �The first one did time in Huntsville. One of the state prisons down there.�
    �That be in Texas?�
    �Texas, yeah.�
    �For what?�
    �Delivery and sale. Copped a plea, got off with two years and a five-grand fine.�
    �You ever meet this winner?�
    �No. Alicia told me about him.�
    �So this had to be longer ago than nine years, right?�
    �Huh?�
    �If the last time she came to visit��
    �Oh. Yeah.�
    �So this first husband is bygone times, right?�
    �Right.�
    �When did he do his time? Before or after Alicia knew him?�
    �Before. He was out by the time they met.�
    �Living up here by then?�
    �I guess. Otherwise how would she�ve met him?�
    �That his only fall? The one in Texas?�
    �Far as I know.�
    �And his name?�
    �Al Dalton.�
    �For Albert?�
    �Who the hell knows?�
    �How about the second husband? Has he got a record, too?�
    �No. What makes you think