Heat Lightning Read Online Free PDF Page B

man.” Shrake was a BCA agent, one of the agency’s two official thugs. He liked nothing more than running into a bad bar, jerking some dickweed off a barstool in midsentence, and dragging his ass past his pals and into the waiting cop car. “I think I pulled a muscle in my butt.”
    “Christ, you smell like somebody poured a bottle of Jim Beam on your head,” Virgil said.
    “That fuckin’ Jenkins ...”
    Virgil started to laugh.
    “That fuckin’ Jenkins set me up with a hot date,” Shrake said, hitching up his pants. “She was already out of control when I picked her up. Smelled like she’d been brushing her teeth with bourbon. She drank while she danced . . . then she fell down and I stupidly tried to catch her. . . . Anyway—what should I do?”
    “I don’t know,” Virgil said. And, “Why are you out here?”
    “Davenport called me up, said you might need some backup.” Shrake cocked his head. “He said you were banging Janey Carter when he called.”
    “Actually, it’s Janey Small . . . ah, never mind. Listen, there’s not much to do. The locals are knocking the doors, we’re waiting for the ME—”
    “The ME’s here,” Shrake said.
    “Okay. But to tell you the truth, and I hate to say it, it looks professional,” Virgil said. “There ain’t gonna be much.”
    “Yeah?” Shrake was interested. “Same guy as that New Ulm killing, you think?”
    “Same guy,” Virgil said. “From looking at it, I’d say our best hope is that he only had two targets. I’ve got some stuff to check out in the morning, but this is gonna be tough.”
    “Well, you know what they say,” Shrake said. “When the going gets tough, try to unload it on that fuckin’ Flowers.”
    The problem with a pro was that there’d be none of the usual skein of connections that tied a killer to a victim. The crime scene would be useless, because a pro wouldn’t leave anything behind. If a bunch of bodies added up to a motive for some particular person—the person who hired the pro—that person would have an alibi for the time of the killings, and could stand silent when questioned. The pro, in the meantime, might have come from anywhere, and might have gone anywhere after the killings. With hundreds of thousands of people moving through the metro area on any given day, how did you pick the murderous needle out of the innocent haystack?
     
 
VIRGIL AND SHRAKE walked together back to the veterans’ memorial. The TV trucks had all come in, and Mattson was standing in a pool of light, talking to three reporters. Brandt came over and asked, “You done with Miz Owen?”
    “For tonight. If you could find a friend . . .”
    “Got her sister coming over. She lives in Eagan, it’ll take a while, but she’s coming,” Brandt said.
    “Good,” Virgil said. He nodded toward the monument. “The ME’s guys say anything?”
    “Yeah. He was shot twice. In the head.”
    “Well, shit, what more do you want?” Shrake asked. Brandt’s nosed twitched, picking up Shrake’s bourbon bouquet, and Shrake sidled away.
    Brandt said to Virgil, “The mayor would like to talk to you.”
    “Sure,” Virgil said. “Where is he?”
     
 
BRANDT TOOK THEM OVER, Shrake staying downwind. The mayor was a short, pudgy man, a professional smiler and a meet-your-eyes-with-compassion sort of guy, whose facial muscles were now misbehaving. He said to Virgil, “What-a, what-a, what-a . . .”
    Virgil knew what he was trying to ask, and said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with your town—I think Mr. Sanderson was a specific target. The same man killed another victim down in New Ulm. That’s what I think. You don’t have much to worry about.”
    “Thank you for that,” the mayor said. He rubbed his hands nervously, peering about at the crime scene. “I feel so bad for Sally. Gosh, I hope she gets through this okay.” He seemed to mean it, and Virgil nodded and said to Shrake, “We oughta head back. We need to get at some