Stray Bullets Read Online Free PDF Page B

just inside the door and turned to Greene. “You need someone to identify the body. That’s why you asked if we had other family here.”
    “It has to be done,” Greene said. “Is there anyone. A neighbor? A nanny? A friend?”
    Wilkinson’s jaw clamped tight like a vise. “You don’t have capital punishment in Canada, do you?”
    “No, sir.”
    “What do these bastards get? A few months at a hobby farm?”
    “Twenty-five years for first-degree murder.”
    Wilkinson slumped down into the chair nearest the door. “My wife is crushed. If you don’t catch these guys …” He slammed his big fist into his open palm so hard that it sounded like a slap.

7
    Driving her nine-year-old Honda along the north side of Danforth Avenue, Nancy Parish slowed to a crawl at the traffic light, which was turning red. The snow from last night still covered the sidewalks. Pappas Grill, the restaurant where she was supposed to pick up Larkin St. Clair, was on the next corner, but there was no sign of him.
    She scanned the street.
    At this early hour the wide avenue was stirring to life and the round red traffic signal glowed against the brightening sky. The sun cut low on the horizon, speeding through its limited late-autumn trajectory. To her right, a man dressed in a white uniform was shoveling off the space in front of his bakery. To her left, a merchant came out of his all-night fruit market and turned the spotlights off a table of outdoor produce. A group of women joggers dressed in sleek running-wear crossed in front of her car, determined looks on their reddened faces.
    I’m pathetic, Parish thought. She’d been so busy trying to get everything tied up at the office so she could get away that she hadn’t done any exercise for a week.
    But where was St. Clair?
    The light turned green, and she accelerated slowly. Fortunately hers was the only car on the road. She was almost at the restaurant and still nothing.
    Then she saw a flash of color. St. Clair rushed out from a recessed doorway. She threw the car in park, reached behind her, and cracked open the back door. He ran around the rear of the car and in a second was inside, slamming the rusty door shut behind him.
    “Keep your fat head down,” she hissed, hitting the gas.
    “I’m down,” he said. “I’m down.”
    She’d seen him toss a cigarette butt on the road before he jumped in the car, and he reeked of tobacco. His long hair, which he always wore far down his back, had been hacked off to shoulder length.
    “Get under this.” She threw a blanket that she’d grabbed on her way out of her house at him.
    “I’m covered.”
    “What the fuck did you do to your hair?”
    “I’m on the run, man,” he said.
    She laughed. “Larkin, you’re really lousy at this. You wanted to change your appearance, why didn’t you shave it all off?”
    “You crazy? Chicks love my hair.”
    “Glad to see you’ve got your priorities straight.” She checked her rearview mirror. Still no traffic on the road. “We’re going to police headquarters.”
    “Why not fifty-five?”
    Fifty-five was the local police division that had been a second home for St. Clair since he’d been twelve.
    “The division will just transport you downtown to the homicide bureau. Congratulations. You’ve made it to the big leagues.”
    Up ahead, a truck had pulled up outside a Greek butcher, and a man wearing a white apron was hauling out a sheep carcass on his shoulder. She felt thankful that, despite the invasion of high-end coffee shops, designer cookware stores, and white-walled hair salons, Danforth Avenue still had its share of tacky bridal shops, dry cleaners who actually did repairs, and places like this butcher’s, with a row of carcasses across its broad front window.
    “You’ll be fresh meat for the press,” she said.
    “See that picture of me in the Sun ? Whole fucking front page.”
    “Don’t sound so proud of yourself.” She handed him an envelope. “Take this. The letter