The Dead List Read Online Free PDF

for a year now. I wanted to be a policeman. Like you said, I just got here a little late.”
    “I can’t place your accent either; it seems to come and go. Are you from back east? Were you born on the East Coast?”
    “Mostly, sir – my family lived all over.” He told the practiced lie – the one they’d taught him.
    During the past year, he’d discovered that people who are different gravitate toward others who are also different. Ryberg with his slight accent, which Drake couldn’t place, was probably looking for some common ground. That was all. The sergeant continued staring at him, and Drake wasn’t sure. Ryberg might know something about him – something nobody was supposed to know. Or, maybe his senses were failing him after standing out in the rain half the night. Maybe the man was just trying to be friendly.
    “Your sergeant tells me that you’ve been on duty for almost twenty-four hours. You’re tired, John, and I need you alert. Go home and get some rest – report back in a few hours.”
    Before he could argue, Ryberg had left. Moments later Drake saw Myron picking him up in a patrol car outside the restaurant.
    He paced up and down the living-room floor of his small apartment for a few minutes, wearing a path in the cheap carpet. In his previous life – the one he wasn’t allowed to talk about – you moved on as fast as you could when you found a dead body. Even if it was one of your own, you didn’t dwell on it. You couldn’t; that would get you killed. This was different. Now they had to examine a body and piece together a man’s life.
    Mentally, he relived every detail that had occurred during the past few hours, and wondered whether he’d been right or wrong to declare the incident on Cobalt Street a homicide. If his dispatch had reached the General Investigations Service team that might have been acceptable, but Major Crime Unit was another level up. Somehow they’d managed to alert the elite investigative branch of the RCMP. Sergeant Thiessen could have overruled him; he could have canceled the call, but he didn’t. A part of Thiessen either agreed with Drake or he was hanging him out to dry; he wasn’t sure which. After taxing his brain until he could barely think straight, he dropped onto his bed. For once, the shadows from the past didn’t invade his slumber. Still wearing his uniform, he was asleep in seconds.
    He awoke with the same excitement he’d had in Ireland – in the old days. It took him a moment to remember where he was. He felt as though he’d just closed his eyes, but when he looked at the clock he saw it was one in the afternoon. He dialed the number and pushed the message button on his mobile phone.
    He listened to the hushed tones of the daytime stenographer. “Drake, it’s Veronica. Sergeant Thiessen is wondering when you’re going to get the patrol car back to us. He’s not happy. Call me as soon as you’re available please.”
    Usually four or five hours sleep was sufficient for him, but something about being up all night, and finding a dead body, had made him more tired than usual. Instead of driving back to the station and switching the police car with his truck, he’d kept the cruiser and parked it outside his apartment building. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and after drinking a large glass of water he was back behind the wheel. When he radioed the office to alert them that he was on his way, he was instructed to pick up Ryberg outside the front door of the police station.
    “Ten-four Dispatch, can you let Sergeant Thiessen know that I still have a cruiser.”
    Immediate response. “He’s aware, Officer. What’s your ETA?”
    No addressing by last name or personal greeting. It wasn’t normal. Everyone – the anonymous voice on the radio whose name he couldn’t recognize, and even Veronica, the receptionist who had left the message on his phone – seemed to have stepped up their game. The crime team from the city was having an