Streak of Lightning Read Online Free PDF

upset, said we had to call 9-1-1. He was saying stuff that didn’t make sense, like he was the reason Joe was dead. But before I could do anything, he was already on the phone to Morristown and then to Jesse.”
    â€œDid you go back and see the body?”
    He nodded. “His eyes were open, but weird as this sounds, other than that, he looked asleep. I’ve never seen anyone murdered except in movies and video games, so I’m not sure what I expected to see, but I guess I thought he’d look, I don’t know, in pain or something. But he looked kind of peaceful. Like he just laid down and died.”
    â€œAnd that’s what you told the detective from the state police. What Greg said about Joe and the rest of it.”
    â€œYeah, and about the bruise on his chest.”
    I stood up. “What bruise?”
    â€œI opened up his shirt a little to check his pulse, just to be sure, and I could see there was a bruise right on the top of his chest, up by his neck.” He put his hand to the base of his throat. “About here.”
    â€œLike he was strangled?”
    â€œI don’t know what that looks like, do you?”
    â€œNot really. Just from movies and things.”
    â€œBut I know bruises,” Larry said. “I get enough of them banging around cars. And I know that this one was pretty new. It was still forming, you know, still mostly red with the blue edges just starting, so my guess is that he got it at some point yesterday. Maybe during the day or maybe even last night when he was in that jail cell.”
    Larry replaced the hose in the pump, and I paid him. “Did the detective ask you about anything else?”
    â€œShe asked me about other entrances to the station. I told her about the one in the back that leads to the alley.”
    â€œBut that’s always locked up tight.”
    â€œYeah, usually, though some of the guys use it as a shortcut to get to Jitters on a rainy or cold day. While the paramedics were with Joe, and we were waiting for you and Jesse to come back to town, I went and checked that door, just in case. I thought that maybe someone had left it open and the killer had gotten in the back door, somehow opened Joe’s cell, choked him, and then escaped into the alley without being seen. Perfect crime.”
    â€œSo? Was it unlocked?”
    He shook his head. “Locked tight as a drum, deadbolt and everything, so it had to be locked from the inside. No one could have gotten in that station except through Greg.”
    â€œAnd you told that to the state police, too?”
    â€œA police officer tells the truth, even a volunteer one. Greg was the guy that told me that.”
    â€œGreg’s right.”
    But it brought up an interesting question. If Greg, the nicest guy I knew, was so intent on telling the truth, why did he keep saying he killed a man?

Chapter 9
    â€œThe police don’t know about Rich being at Joe’s place earlier in the day?” Carrie asked me as we walked up to Rich’s parents’ house, a nice split-level on the edge of town.
    â€œJesse knows. He was there.”
    That didn’t seem to make her feel better. Rich, aside from being Carrie’s employee, was also the nephew and cousin of two of our quilt group members, Susanne and her daughter, Natalie. So, in a way, he was family. It was highly unlikely that he had anything to do with Joe’s death since, as Larry had made clear, it would have been impossible for him to slip past Greg and get into Joe’s locked cell. But it felt like just by coming to his house we were suspecting him of something, and that in itself seemed wrong.
    â€œI’m sorry about Mr. Proctor,” Rich said when we sat in the family room. His parents had left us alone with him, given that we were all friends, but I could tell his dad was hovering just outside the room.
    â€œWe’re not sure yet how he died,” Carrie told Rich, “so Jesse has