Jury of Peers Read Online Free PDF Page B

bunch of nothin’.   The weapon was probably a nine or a forty Smith from what it did.  We’ll probably get fragments out of the surgery, and the one in the floor under the girl.  Not that it’s gonna matter much.”
                  Finn understood and skipped to the next question even as his mind worked on the next one, “What kind of pistol has a two round clip?”
                  Tonic nodded.  “Yeah, I know.  You mean why’d this Meek guy live if someone had a gun and was all stoked to use it?”
                  “Two guns.”  They stepped out of the hall reflexively, moving toward the fresh air of the back door.
    “Possibilities.”  Tonic flipped up his middle finger at Finn and counted it off.  “Jam?”  Another finger, “Cheap ammo, there's plenty of that around.  The second gun?  Dunno…. Maybe it was a magazine, carrying an extra clip isn't a bad idea.  Maybe it was a pair of sunglasses, something the kid lifted out of the house, a phone… fuck, who knows?  Besides, he’s all busted up in a funky way.  If he was trying to play it off like a hit of some kind, he did good.”
    “Was it?” Finn asked.
    “Well, I’d say it was pretty far out to think that this guy ordered a hit on his family, but since he did somehow live through it when everyone else took a bullet for their trouble, yeah it’s a possibility .”
                  “I’ll check on his finances, policies, all of that, but I bet it comes up clean.”  Finn checked that one off in the book.  “What else?”
                  “Gloves."
                  “Yeah that bugs me too,” Finn replied.  “That was the straight shit, and it wouldn’t be the first time we’d seen bangers be semi–smooth, but it'll mean that we have about zero to go on.  It’s still early, we still might get a hit on some prints.”  Finn checked off several more ideas and then circled the last few that he'd jotted into the margin. 
    Tonic ran his hands through his hair and left it in its customary mess, “I’d say this was all about probability.”

Chapter Four
    Introit
     
     
    Seth woke up on the floor, his face against the cool tiles just as the lights came on with an intensity that only served to further disorient him.  He could hear himself screaming, but even then it was dying away in his throat like water gurgling down a drain.  He had edged away into a brittle sleep, the claustrophobic sort that drugs bring, and had found himself trapped within his mind, unable to wake, and yet fully aware of the nightmare that played out before him. 
                  “I thought I could walk,” he said as the nurses converged.
                  “You don’t need to walk, you need to sleep,” one of the pair said in her middle of the night voice.  “Scared the life right out of me.”
                  “I thought I could walk.  I need to see my wife.  Please.”
                  The two counted, lifted as one, and brought him back around to his bed.  He sat there, steadied by their gaze, and touched his face.  It was foreign to him, studded with sutures and smooth with swelling.  Hot. 
    “Please.”
                  “Let us go ask,” one said.  “You stay put, and we’ll find out for you, alright?”  They lowered him back and began to reset the monitors.  They knew all about his wife but needed time to agree on the wording.
                  “Please,” he repeated as they stood in the door and conferred with one another.
                  Seth watched the clock until the nurses parted and a doctor entered the room.  She stood over him, looming in the light from the hall.
                  “Mr. Meek, my name is Sam.  I've been working on your wife from the beginning.  She's alive but she’s also in a tough spot.  It’ll be awhile until we know much more