Sharpshooter Read Online Free PDF

skin and long fingers like beautifully shaped twigs; hands best suited to the application of eye makeup.
    Steve returned the notepad to his shirt pocket and put his hands together, fingers interlaced, and stared down at them. After what seemed a painfully long silence, he looked up at Sunny and asked, “How would you characterize your relationship with Wade Skord?”
    Sunny wondered if that was an official question or a personal one, or merely curiosity. Cops are the best source of gossip in a small town, next to the hairdresser and the DA’s office. She said, “We’re friends. Have been for years.”
    “Nothing more?”
    “No. Is that part of this?”
    Steve looked up at her with a new fierceness in his eyes. “Ms. McCoskey, may I remind you that a man has been killed, shot with a rifle not half a mile from Wade Skord’s home. What Wade Skord was doing last night and who he was doing it with are very important pieces of information. People’s lives could depend on it.”
    Wade’s life could depend on it, thought Sunny. She said, “We aren’t lovers. We never have been. We’re friends, and we collaborate in our businesses. I work with him as a consultant in his winemaking, he produces wine for Wildside.”
    Steve seemed to relax slightly. He said, “Did he seem upset or agitated about anything last night? Did he mention anything that was bothering him?”
    “No. In fact, he seemed extremely relaxed. It’s been a good growing season; the fruit looks like it will be exceptional, if the weather holds. Assuming nothing goes wrong in the next few days, it will be one of the best harvests in years.” Sunny paused. She’d been trying to ignore the obvious subtext of their conversation, but the time had come to face it. “Steve, Wade Skord isn’t capable of murder.”
    “I’ve never met anyone I thought was, but plenty of murders happen,” said Steve. “People are capable of more than you think.”
    “Not Wade. I’ve known him for years. He thinks about three things: the vines, the grapes, and the wine. He is completely absorbed in his work.”
    “And what if something threatened that work?”
    Sunny didn’t reply and Steve stood to go. After he left, she sat staring at the card he’d given her with his mobile-phone number penciled on the back. “In case you remember something,” he’d said. Like what? That Wade planned to shoot Jack Beroni later that night after she left?
    Rivka stuck her head in a few minutes later. “What was that all about?” she asked.
    Sunny looked up, feeling suddenly on edge. “Long story.”
    “It wasn’t about Jack Beroni, was it?”
    Sunny hesitated. Rivka came into the office and plopped down on the couch. She took a bunch of Sauvignon Blanc grapes from a bowl on Sunny’s desk and began to eat them, piling the seeds on the corner of an old newspaper lying on the coffee table. After several grapes she said, “Alex called right after you left. He told me about them finding Jack this morning. Everyone’s talking about it.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He said Silvano Cruz, the guy who oversees the vineyard, was driving along in his tractor early this morning when he noticed something red running down the steps of the gazebo. Turned out to be blood. He went up there and found Jack sprawled on his back, dead. About this time, Alex pulls into the winery for work, and here comes Silvano running up the road saying Jack’s been shot, they have to call the police. Alex said he was white as a sheet. So Silvano goes inside to phone while Alex drives down to the gazebo to stand guard until the police get there. He said there was blood all over the place. He sounded pretty shook up about it. He waited around until the police got there, then helped them tape off the area and lift the body onto the stretcher and everything.”
    Sunny rubbed her head with her knuckles, making circles at her temples and working her way back to her neck. The day was getting weirder and weirder, and