Silent Joe Read Online Free PDF Page A

without it, so it contained the outlines of his life. More than the outlines. It held his calendar and appointment books, his notes and letters, his drafts and reports, his to-do list, his doodles. Everything he might use in a day—from a tiny tape recorder to a toothbrush and paste—Will carried with him in that old leather case. I carried it with me into the interview room and set it beside me as if it were my own. No one questioned it.
    And I didn't consider the tennis bag we'd picked up from the HACF be Alagna's business, either.
    I wasn't about to offer too much to a cop I didn't know, some paleface who had to ask three times what an overcoat looked like.
    I also forgot to mention Will's gift to Jennifer Avila that evening, the two thousand dollars I'd counted and rolled. Likewise, their private words.
    I forgot that I heard anything but hello and good-bye between Will, Jaime Medina and the Reverend Daniel Alter.
    I forgot to recount Will's quick conversations on his cell phone, just minutes before he died. And I wondered how I could get a phone company log of those calls. A homicide investigator sure could, but a fourth-year deputy? It would take a while.
    And I forgot to mention that Mary Ann, my adoptive mother, had be blue lately, and that Will was trying hard to get home by ten.
    All of that was Will's business; none of it was Alagna's.
    Lucia Fuentes barreled back into the room. "One of the shooters hanging on. No ID on him, but he's alive." Alagna looked at me. "Maybe he can fill in some of Mr. Trona's sizable gaps."
    I nodded but said nothing. Instead I stared down at Will's briefcase, noting the drop of dried blood near the handle. I hoped Alagna wouldn't notice it. I didn't think he would.
    "But I struck out on the girl," Fuentes continued. "Nothing at all on a missing twelve-year-old named Savannah. The National Center, the FBI, Sacramento—not even Joe's sheriffs here—nobody's looking for her. Maybe it's an alias."
    Alagna stared at me. "I doubt her daddy lets her run around with fifty-year-old guys after dark."
    "Maybe that's exactly what her daddy does," snapped Fuentes.
    "Joe, you know if the supervisor was bent that way?"
    I stared back at Alagna then, and a flush came to his waxy skin.
    "Detective Alagna, he was a good man," I said. "And I'll pretend you didn't ask that stupid question."
    "Big words from a fourth-year jailer."
    "We can settle differences anyway you'd like, sir."
    "I don't settle."
    "Come on, you assholes," said Fuentes. "What's wrong with you, Guy?"
    Alagna looked away, his ears turning red. It was quite a contrast with his white beak of a nose.
    What was wrong with Guy was that he was afraid of me, and angry about it. Nothing in the world seems to make healthy, tough cops madder than a twenty-four-year-old monster who can't be intimidated.
    I not only have a face that looks like something made in hell, but I'm tall and strong. I'm conversant with most weapons, and I've spent nearly my whole life learning how to defend myself—every method and school, every technique you can imagine—so that what happened when I was nine months old never happens again. I've promised myself that it will never happen again.
    But my best weapon is that people sense I'm not afraid of anything. Maybe it's the scar tissue. My eyes. My voice. I really don't know. In fact, there are two things I'm afraid of. One is my father, my real father, the one who did this to me when I was nine months old. His name is Thor Svendson and he's out there somewhere. If he ever appears again, I'll be ready. I have five black belts, two regional Golden Gloves titles. I have a Sheriff Department Distinguished Marksman pin to prove I'm ready.
    The other thing that terrified me—although I didn't know it until then—was living without Will. And of the two, life without Will was far the worst.
    So, with my ruined face and apparent fearlessness, most people afraid of me. It's been true since I was very young. As I grew used