Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery Read Online Free PDF

already. He’ll be at the plant by now.” Her eyes pointed in his direction but didn’t seem to focus on him.
    “What are you talking about?” he asked calmly.
    “Are you hungry, son? I could fix some eggs.”
    He wasn’t going to get upset. After all, it wasn’t her fault. She really had loved her worthless husband, even after all the years of pain he’d caused her. Love was a strange thing, thought Zack. “Mom, I want you to listen to me, okay?” He waited for her response, but she just stared up at him with empty eyes. He slid a chair around in front of her and sat. “Dad is dead,” he said as gently as possible. “He died a week ago, and we went to the funeral together. Remember?”
    Her head tilted, and she squinted. “Your father will be home at six. You know that, Zack.” The voice wasn’t that of a fifty-four year old woman; it was high-pitched like a little girl’s.
    Zack felt his patience slipping. “He’s dead, Mom. Can’t you understand? Dead!” He didn’t want to be cruel, but he didn’t know how else to reach her.
    Her hands came up and caught her face on each side. She began to rock slowly, forward and back, sobbing heavy drops that ran down her hands and arms. “Don’t say that,” she said in her child’s voice. “He’s fine. I kissed him good-bye this morning.”
    Zack reached over and pulled her close to him. “He is dead,” he repeated simply. “Remember the funeral, mother?” He sighed, frustrated.
    She pushed him away and looked at him coldly. “He is not!” she said stubbornly. “Heeee’s nooooot, you liar,” she yelled.
    Zack stood, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back. “Shit!” he yelled, and he ran out of the room.
    He jumped off the porch, falling twice in the snow on the way to the car. It was no use, he told himself, as he drove away.
     
    The next morning the phone rang, waking him. His sister repeated the same sentence three times between sobs before he knew he wasn’t dreaming. “Mom committed suicide,” she said.
     
    ---
     
    The gas pump clicked off, bringing Zack back to the present. A cute, blonde-haired attendant, not more than eighteen, leaned against the pump, staring at him. How long had she been standing there? She must think I’m on drugs, the way I was just spacing out. He paid his bill and sped off toward the freeway entrance ramp.
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
    The sun hung low in the western sky, and Zack’s Camaro slipped into a long shadow as he passed a Greyhound bus. Billboards advertised three motels at the next exit leading to some small town on the northern outskirts of Dayton. He decided to check them out.
    An hour later, after a long hot shower, he lay back on his motel bed. He relaxed a while, watching TV for the next hour. At about nine, he dressed and drove into town. He wanted to get a feel for the area where he would be job hunting the next morning.
    “I’ll take a Bud,” said Zack to the chubby bartender at the Blue Collar Bar , a typical neighborhood joint with ten tables, a half-dozen video games, and three pool tables. The crowd was light, but it was still early. Zack sat drinking his beer at the short end of the L-shaped bar. Three Hispanic men sat a few tables down from him, and a wiry black guy played pool against a white, pockmarked gas station worker with “Pete” embroidered across his left breast pocket. The two appeared to be friends by the way they talked and joked with each other. Zack wondered if their friendship was the pool-room-only kind or the “bring the wife and kids over Saturday and we’ll barbecue some steaks” kind. As Zack watched them play, he knew they’d spent many an hour and hundreds of quarters working that same table. They knew the rails, and they could gauge just what odd rolls the ball would take. The game ended quickly. The gas station worker ran all but one of his balls after the break, and his friend finished him off in one turn.
    Zack drank a few more beers and continued