Legwork Read Online Free PDF Page B

about Thornton Mitchell when I pulled up all the photos side-by-side and compared them. He was old. I figured his corpse was close to sixty-five. That gave him about forty years of behind-the-scenes maneuverings and contributions to political causes. So how come he was never in the forefront of a photo? Never standing beside a candidate? Never once taking center stage? And how come I never saw him in a single shot with the esteemed Senator Boyd Jackson, Stoney Maloney’s fairy godfather uncle, the puppetmaster behind Mary Lee’s opponent? It was pretty damn odd to be a conservative in this state and never shake hands with Boyd Jackson. Maybe they’d had a feud going. Or maybe something cozier.
    I filed the tidbit away for further reference just as Bobby D. bellowed to me from the front office.
    “I got the info you need, doll face,” he hollered.
    I logged off NandoNet and marched in to find out what he’d uncovered. I was smart enough not to expect him to come to me. “What’s up?” I asked.
    “A dame called it in,” he told me. “A young woman reported the body about two a.m. last night. Said she and her boyfriend had been out parking and they’d seen a lady pull her car into the driveway then get out, acting funny. When the lady went inside the house, they looked in the car. Saw what looked like a body rolled in a tarp. Sped away and called the cops.”
    “How very civic-minded of them,” I said dryly. “She said they were out parking in Country Club Hills?” Bullshit. The kids screwed on the fourth hole of the golf course there. They didn’t drive around looking for Lover’s Lane.
    “That’s what she said,” Bobby answered, palms spread wide. “I got me some impeccable sources.”
    “What was her name?” I demanded.
    “She didn’t say.” Bobby shrugged. “She called the dispatcher directly.”
    “Not 911?”
    Bobby shook his head. “Nope. Called the dispatcher and was all excited, blurted out her story, and gave the address. Then she hung up.”
    “What makes the night clerk think she was young?”
    “She was out driving around with her boyfriend, what else?”
    “Bobby, if you were any dumber I’d make you into a doorstop. No one is a teensy bit skeptical of a miraculous midnight caller who conveniently knew all the facts about the body?”
    “I didn’t say that,” Bobby admitted. “It sounds fishy to me, too. And to everyone else. Maybe that’s why they haven’t arrested Mary Lee for murder.”
    “Not that Hooter would let them.”
    Bobby shrugged. “Whatever. She’s been down at the station for a couple of hours now, answering questions. She’ll probably be there all afternoon. It’s driving the reporters crazy. Happened too late to make this morning’s papers and they might not even get a statement from her in tomorrow’s edition.”
    “How terribly inefficient of Mary Lee,” I muttered. “She must remember to murder at a more convenient hour next time.” Then it hit me. “The station?” I asked. Had Bill Butler won the battle of jurisdiction after all?
    “Who’s in charge of the investigation?” I asked.
    “Joint effort,” Bobby replied. “Local and state. CCBI and the SBI. Everybody but Andy Griffith.”
    “Well, surprise, surprise, surprise,” I said, clomping out to my car. I wanted to get home and sleep off my hangover. My head was really aching. I was bone tired. I needed to get some sleep and think it over. I ought to take a good look at Mary Lee’s husband, Bradley, but for now I just wanted a good look at my pillow.
    “Where are you going?” Bobby called after me. “We’ve got work to do.”
    “So do it,” I told him. “If you ever want to get up, just put your hands on the armrests and push.”
    Twenty-five minutes later, I was snuggled beneath my very own pair of cool sheets. My apartment was quiet in the afternoon light, the silence broken only by the occasional freight train crawling through downtown.
    I had switched off the telephone