Lincoln Perry 02 - Sorrow's Anthem Read Online Free PDF Page B

body lay under the car, and
the stupid son of a bitch in the driver’s seat put it in reverse and
backed up, rolling the front wheels over Ed once more. I screamed
again, and then the car was in park and the cops were clambering
out it, shouting at me to keep back. I ignored them and ran toward
Ed, reached under the car for him.
I had my hands on Ed’s shoulders when the cop who’d been
driving grabbed me and tried to pull me back, shouting at me to
get out of the way. I spun and put my right fist into his stomach
without thinking about it, then crawled back under the car while
he doubled over. Ed’s body was only partially covered by the front
end of the Crown Vic, and as I tugged him free, I knew he was
dead—blood was flowing from his nose, mouth, and even his ears,
the flesh ripped and scraped, bits of the skull stark and white
against the blood and torn skin. I got only a glance before the second
cop wrapped his arm around my throat and pulled me back,
pushing the barrel of his gun in my ear.
There was more shouting then, but I don’t remember what was
said. Some of it was directed at me, some of it was from me. The
cops were shoving me away, and I was screaming in their faces.
The middle-aged woman who’d been driving the van from the opposite
direction got out of her vehicle, took one look at Ed,
dropped to her knees, and vomited in the street. More cars had
gathered now, and people were standing on the curb, watching the
scene. One of them was moving forward, and I turned away from
the cops in time to see Scott Draper just before he threw a punch
at my head.
“You shoved him!” he screamed. “You shoved him!”
“He ran,” I shouted back, and he swung at me again as the cops
tried to get in our way. “I tried to stop him, you stupid bastard.”
He was still trying to get at me. I grabbed him by the shoulders
and knocked him backward onto the pavement. I would have gotten
a punch in if the cop who’d been driving the Crown Vic hadn’t
caught my wrist. He slammed me onto the ground next to Draper.
That’s where I remained while they put the handcuffs on—
facedown on the street, my right cheek against the road, my left
eye watching a trickle of Ed Gradduk’s blood work its way toward
me, cutting a determined path over the pavement as if its last mission
were to touch my flesh.
    CHAPTER 4
    They let me go home around midnight. Charges of interference
and obstruction had been threatened but I had not been booked.
The cop who’d been in the passenger seat, a guy named Larry
Rabold, lightened up once he learned who I was, but his partner, the
one who had stopped me on the sidewalk, was not so fraternal. His
name was Jack Padgett, and he didn’t show any desire to let bygones
be bygones once he found out I had been a cop. They talked to me
for about an hour, asking all about Ed, particularly what information
might have been exchanged in our brief conversation. They seemed
unconvinced by my claim that I hadn’t spoken to him in years.
“Why the hell did you come running down to his house as soon
as you heard the news, then?” Padgett had asked. It was a good
question, one I’d already failed to answer earlier in the night, and I
still hadn’t come up with anything satisfactory. They’d both been
intrigued by my description of how things had gone down with Ed
and me a few years back, and I knew they’d check it out and see if
they could find anything to indicate I’d had contact with the man
since then. They would come up empty, though.
Once I was kicked loose, I called a cab to take me back to my
truck. Clark Avenue was dark and quiet save for a few stragglers on
the sidewalk and one woman waiting for a bus. I stood at the curb
and stared up the street to where my oldest friend had died a few
hours earlier. They’d hosed the blood off the pavement, and the
night heat had already baked it dry.
I climbed inside the truck and started the engine, sat there listening
to the traffic noise, and wondering