Stakeout (2013) Read Online Free PDF

even more unsettled than before the conversation had begun.

9
    E ARLY NEXT MORNING I DROVE out to the motel and pulled up in front of the manager’s office.
    He wasn’t glad to see me. He kept the counter between us, looked prepared to duck. “Hey, this is not my fault. I’m sorry I saw you, but I saw you. That’s my job. A guy rents a unit, a girl shows up, that’s fine. Another guy shows up, that’s trouble. If you’d busted in the door, I’d have called the cops. It was a relief when he let you in.”
    “He didn’t let me in.”
    “I don’t want to get into it. Hell, I shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”
    “Right. I don’t care about that. That’s your opinion, and you’re welcome to it.”
    He looked at me suspiciously. “I am?”
    “I’m not here to make trouble, honest. I’m just trying to find out what happened.”
    He looked at me as if I told him I knew tomorrow’s lottery numbers. “Uh huh.”
    “I’m just wondering. The man in the room. The man they say I killed. How was he registered?”
    “How was he registered?”
    “Yeah. When he signed the register. Did he use his own name?”
    “Why?”
    “I’m trying to make sense out of this. It doesn’t make sense to me. If I knew what name he was registered under, it might be a clue.”
    “If I had a clue, I would give it to the police. I would not give it to you. No offense.”
    “None taken. You gotta live here. You got a job. Just anything you could do to help me out without interfering with your relationship with the police department would be appreciated.”
    Appreciated was the wrong word. I knew it the minute it was out of my mouth. I could see him latch onto it.
    “Yeah, well if the police knew I was talking to you, that would not be appreciated. All you’re going to do is get me into trouble. Get out of here or I’ll tell the cops. Isn’t there some law about harassing a witness? I don’t wanna make trouble for you, but I don’t want you to make trouble for me.”
    I didn’t want him calling the cops. I got the hell out of there.
    I must say I took his desire not to make trouble for me with a grain of salt. His eyewitness account was enough to get me convicted of murder. I wondered what his idea of making trouble was.

10
    “I HEAR YOU GOT ARRESTED for murder.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Did you do it?”
    “Fuck you.”
    MacAullif leaned back in his desk chair, and cocked his head. The chair squeaked in protest. A big man to begin with, the sergeant had put on a little weight lately.
    “I’m not familiar with that plea. Innocent, guilty, even nolo contendere. That I know. But fuck you? That’s a new one on me.”
    “You’re in an awfully good mood.”
    “Well, you’re in trouble. That’s always entertaining.”
    “Usually it pisses you off.”
    “Yeah. But it’s in Jersey. Outside my jurisdiction. There’s nothing I can do.”
    “Well, actually.…”
    “Well, actually.” MacAullif shook his head. “Count on the dickhead to rain on my parade with a ‘well actually.’”
    “You must know New Jersey cops.”
    “Apparently not as many as you.”
    “Do you know Sergeant Fuller of the Major Crimes Unit?”
    “No. Why?”
    “My arresting officer.”
    “God help him. I was your arresting officer once. Look what it got me.”
    “Know anyone you could ask?”
    “Why?”
    “Guy’s all over my case. First I thought he and his partner were playing good-cop, bad-cop, now I think he is Bad Cop. I’d like to know if it’s personal, or if he’s just doing a job.”
    “Why’d they pick you up?”
    “They found me in a motel room with the corpse.”
    “Holding the murder weapon?”
    “It was under the bed.”
    “Have your fingerprints on it?”
    “No.”
    “You sure of that?”
    “I never touched it. I didn’t know it was there.”
    “Is it possible you touched a gun under some other circumstances which just happened to turn out to be this one?”
    I stared at him. “What kind of a hokey