Fourth Victim Read Online Free PDF Page A

Abruzzi’s wife. Hoskins had made their lives miserable. And given that they had publicly embarrassed Hoskins by breaking the case, his attitude toward them wasn’t likely to have mellowed in the intervening months.
    Healy thought about leaving, but decided he’d find a seat far away from the little stage under the retracted basket. He wasn’t so much interested in what Hoskins had to say as he was in the chatter in the crowd. He knew Hoskins was unlikely to share any useful information about the homicides or the progress of the investigations. No doubt he would say something completely generic.
The investigations are moving ahead and we are following every potential lead.
Bob also knew what advice Hoskins was likely to give:
Don’t deliver after dark. Don’t send your drivers out alone. If you have to do deliveries after dark, have a car follow your trucks. Don’t encourage any unlicensed person to carry a firearm. Blah, blah, blah …
It was the kind of advice that would have been more helpful three murders ago, but cops are necessarily reactive and were seldom out in front of the wave. When they were, they usually drowned.
    Some white-toothed local politician got up before Hoskins and did five minutes on everything from property taxes to school budgets. He managed to squeeze in a few seconds on the murders, reminding the assembled crowd that none had taken place in his district. Yeah, like he had anything to do with that. Two people—his assistant and the parish priest—applauded when he turned the mike over to Hoskins. Hoskins got as far as his title and name when a uniform stepped up to him and whispered in his ear.
    “You’ll have to excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, looking equal parts relieved and dejected. “Officer Dimeola here will help you. Goodnight.”
    With that, Hoskins jumped down off the stage and broke into a trot. A murmur went up in the gym, but Healy was too busy making his way to his car to notice.
    Something Stan Brock said was eating at Joe. Not everyone in the business
would
be equally effected if a panicky driver shot an innocent bystander. In fact, the impact of the killings had been completely lopsided. All the murder victims had been COD drivers.
    What the layman didn’t understand was that the oil business was really two businesses. There were COD—cash on delivery—companies like Mayday Fuel and there were big, full service companies like Gastrol and Mehan. The COD companies were non-union, operated smaller fleets, and catered to a lower income clintele. The full service outfits delivered oil too, but they offered a wide range of services and options to the customers. But as far as the murders went, there was one fundemental difference: COD drivers carried cash, often a lot of cash, and full service drivers didn’t.
    It wasn’t a state secret. The killer knew it. And since the news media had gotten hold of the story, everyone knew it. Then why, Joe wondered, was he so irked by what Stan had said? If you were going to commit murder for money, you might as well get more than what was in a man’s wallet. Maybe that was it, the logic of it that bothered him. In Serpe’s experience, murder wasn’t logical. He’d known crackheads to kill for pocket change. But whatever it was that was bothering him, it would have to wait.
    “A penny for your thoughts,” a woman cooed in his ear. Her voice was familiar, but not as familiar as it once had been.
    “Hey Kath, have a seat. Here,” Joe said, handing her a bottle of Coors.
    Kathleen Cummings was blond, built, blue-eyed and, in Lugo’s low lighting and loud music, it was easy to think her a catch. In the light of day, however, she was less than the sum of her parts. And as Joe discovered when they had dated, together they were even less than that. It wasn’t so much that Kath had begun to fray as unravel. Nor was it so much about her looks. She was still hot by any standard. Twice divorced, Kath was the pin-up girl for bitter pills;