First Class Killing Read Online Free PDF

had possessed me to give up a good corporate career with a very agreeable income to become a private investigator? On what evidence had I concluded that I could successfully perform a job for which I had no training, no background, and no support, except from Harvey, who leaned on me almost more than I did on him? How did I expect to support myself, who did I expect to hire me, and would I ever have made this decision had I known the cost of health benefits for a self-employed individual? In summary, what the hell did I think I was doing?
    The photos were up on my screen. Here was Sylvie Nguyet, the French-Vietnamese exotic flower, wearing a liquid blue silk dress that hung on her delicate shoulders from wispy spaghetti straps. She was caught in the embrace of her client, laughing like a child, her face more animated than her usual serene demeanor ever allowed. When Sylvie was on a date, she seemed to have a need to convince herself she was having a good time.
    Not so with Ava Ashby. Ava, cool and lithe, had the boneless quality of a boa constrictor and the personality to match. She looked as if she could squeeze herself in or out of any situation. Her silver lamé dress—sleeveless with a choker neckline—clung to her like a second skin as she uncoiled from the limo.
    I plowed through the batch, clicking faster as I went, putting names with faces and generally ignoring the photos of the men nuzzling the women’s necks or glancing out furtively from inside the limos. When I got to the end, I closed the file, but then I clicked it open again almost instantly. Without knowing why, I went straight to the shot at the end, the last one I’d seen. I had given it no more weight than all the others, perhaps less. When I pulled it up and studied it more closely, I understood what had drawn me back, and what I saw there made me smile because I knew we had finally caught a break. I knew I had something to work with, and that feeling, all by itself, was enough to get me through tonight and all the way to tomorrow, when it would be time to ask again what the hell I thought I was doing.

Chapter

5
    T HE RAIN HAD PASSED THROUGH DURING THE night, leaving in its wake one of those high-resolution fall days, the kind that make living in New England worth the endless, bone-cracking winters. The Commonwealth Avenue mall, which would spend much of the next several months in monochromatic stasis under a blanket of snow, was vibrant with fall colors. The venerable old elms that lined both sides of the wide promenade were thick with broad leaves at the vivid end of their life. They looked spectacular, but what I loved most was the sound they made. When the wind blew against them, the large, stiffening leaves shook into a sound that had the soaring resonance of applause, as if the trees were rewarding your walk among them.
    I was in search of my car, certain of the general vicinity of where I had parked it last but fuzzy on exact longitude and latitude. It had been a while since I’d had the old Durango out, but I knew it was on Commonwealth somewhere west of Exeter.
    The car did not reveal itself in the Exeter-to-Fairfield block, so I headed for the next block, pulled out my cell phone, and turbo-dialed. I was certain I would get voice mail, but a real, live human picked up.
    “Dan Fallacaro.”
    “Hey.” I was pleasantly surprised. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m working, Shanahan. Hold on.” I could hear the familiar sounds of the Majestic Airlines ticket counter behind Dan, and then his voice. “What flight are you on, sir?” The response was too far away to be clear, and I knew he had stuck the cell phone under his arm to take the man’s ticket and scan it. Dan’s voice was, as always, loud and clear. “Do you have any bags to check today? No? You need to go over to that line. You see the one that says first class?”
    The response was muffled but probably something like, “I’m not flying first class.”
    “Tell them I sent