Hire a Hangman Read Online Free PDF Page B

best.”
    “Yeah …” Gravely, Canelli nodded, then repeated dubiously, “Yeah …”
    1:30 AM
    She turned her gaze from the bedside clock to the ceiling of the bedroom. It had been just a little after ten o’clock, she knew, when she’d arrived at the Green Street address.
    Three and a half hours …
    The pistol had been a snake in her hand, deadly and alive, the dark metal tracking him like a cobra’s head. The flame licking out to find him, touch him—
    Kill him.
    Wands were metal, too. Magician’s wands, touchstones of her childhood. Wands come alive, reincarnated, the flame that could kill.
    A touch of her finger on metal, flame finding flesh, death unto death.
    Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
    And hers, too. Finally hers.

Tuesday, September 11
    9:10 AM
    A S HASTINGS MOUNTED THE broad stone steps of the Barrington Medical Center, the realization suddenly surfaced, paired with a name: Susan Parrish, someone he’d known in high school. Newly promoted, Susan was head nurse at Barrington. She’d married young, just out of high school. Quickly, she’d had two children. Her maiden name had been Jessup; she’d married Arnold Parrish, whose father was a dentist. After she’d had two children, a girl and a boy, and after the children were in their teens, Susan had decided to go to college and become a nurse. When he’d returned to San Francisco, soon after he’d gotten his shield, Hastings had discovered Susan working at San Francisco General, in the emergency room. They’d both been rookies, both in their thirties, both of them taking a second look at life. For Susan, the career move had been voluntary, a search for another dimension. For him, the move had been involuntary, a retreat from the failure of his marriage and the sudden end of his playing days with the Lions. Followed by the final defeat: he and the bottle, no contest.
    At the reception desk, a young black woman with quick eyes and a melodious voice asked whether she could help him.
    “Susan Parrish, please. Tell her it’s Frank Hastings.”
    Moving efficiently, the woman nodded, wrote the name on a small notepad, punched out a number on her telephone console. “Susan Parrish. Frank Hastings is here.” She listened, nodded, smiled at him. “She says for you to come right up. Do you know the way?”
    “Afraid not.”
    She produced a printed floor plan of BMC and deftly began laying out his route with a felt marker.
    9:36 AM
    When Hastings had finished his account of the murder, Susan Parrish smiled broadly. “God, this is great. Obviously, everyone at BMC’ll be talking about Hanchett. But I’ll be the only one with an inside track. Wait’ll I tell Arnie tonight.”
    Sternly, Hastings raised a forefinger. “You can tell Arnie. But that’s it.”
    She nodded, a deep, good-natured inclination of her head. She was a stocky, robust woman, with the mannerisms to match. In high school, Hastings remembered, she’d almost always been on the honor roll. During the twenty-odd minutes they’d been talking, Susan had taken three calls, each obviously involving problems only she could solve. In each case, Susan had dealt with the problem smoothly and efficiently. It was a talent Hastings envied.
    “So what can you tell me about Hanchett?” Hastings asked. “The inside stuff, I mean.”
    “The truth?”
    “The truth.”
    “The whole truth?”
    “The whole truth.”
    “Well, the truth is—let’s see—” She broke off. Crow’s feet showed around her eyes as she considered. Without realizing it, Hastings sat up straighter in his chair, sucked in his stomach.
    “The truth is,” she said, “Dr. Hanchett was a stuffed shirt and a petty tyrant and a bush-league megalomaniac—and a hell of a surgeon. And, oh yes, a philanderer. You already know that part. Scandals—triangles—didn’t faze him. If he saw a woman he liked, he went after her.” She shrugged. “Maybe he couldn’t help himself. Dr. Pfiefer and his wife were only the latest