The Dead Man Read Online Free PDF

reach, you could drive from one edge of the metropolitan area to the other in forty-five minutes, sixty in traffic. Snow changed that. The storm had singled out midtown where six inches had fallen. As we crept south, the accumulation was less, the streets more navigable. The slow drive gave my body time to stuff the clown back into the jack-in-the-box. My breathing eased, my muscles relaxed, my head cleared. I was back in control.
    Lucy limited her questions to the directions Ammara had given me. I watched her as she drove, turning into a skid when ice grabbed the tires, grinning as we spun. I wondered how she had earned her swagger. She carried herself like someone who came from my world, someone who was trained for the perpetual scrum between the good guys and the bad guys, someone who knew the dead man.
    Uniformed cops had established a perimeter, closing off traffic at both ends of the block. They let us through after checking with Ammara. Lucy pulled into a driveway across the street and opened her door.
    "Stay in the car," I told her. She held onto the door handle, one foot on the pavement, sizing me up again, her eyes hard, her mouth firm, the look letting me know that she'd damn well go if she wanted. "Listen, I appreciate that you drove. But you have to wait here. This isn't your show."
    She eased back and smiled. "You're right. Sorry."
    "Habit?"
    "Yeah."
    "Thought so."
    The house sat back from the curb on a slight rise, the front door shrouded by a low-pitched roof jutting over a deep set front porch, most of which was screened in, an irregular wall of bushes and stunted trees, leafless in winter, dividing the far property line from the neighbor to the west. Stout pillars of inlaid Missouri limestone supported both front corners. Two dormers poked out of the roof, signaling an attic long ago converted to bedrooms.
    A walkway led from the driveway across the middle of the lawn, three steps completing the journey to the narrow front door. The storm had petered out by the time it reached this part of the city, dusting old snow with a sprinkling of new. Patches of dark ice hid on the walk, waiting patiently for hurried, careless feet.
    Ammara was waiting for me on the front porch, standing next to another uniformed cop in charge of the crime scene sign-in sheet taped onto the front door. Her black leather jacket was open, her FBI shield hanging on a chain around her neck, a green turtleneck sweater highlighting her ebony skin. She had the height, reach, and power to have been an All American volleyball player in college, traits she'd used to her advantage during ten years with the Bureau, the last three in Kansas City.
    I hadn't seen her since Wendy's funeral. She hugged me long and hard that day, skipping the platitudes that time healed all wounds and that heaven was a better place and that Wendy was finally at peace because we both knew they were total bullshit. That day was personal. Today was business and we both knew the difference.
    "Thanks for coming, Jack."
    "You made it sound irresistible. What do you got?"
    "Walter Enoch. Fifty-four years old. Worked for the post office as a mail carrier."
    FBI agents, cops, DEA, it didn't matter, we all liked to tell stories. There was no fun in cutting to the chase whether the news was good or bad so there was no point in pushing her.
    "What happened to him?"
    "He died. Probably yesterday, probably of natural causes but we won't know for certain until we get the autopsy results."
    "So why the yellow tape and why did you call me?"
    "Come inside."
    Mail was stacked like cord wood in the entry hall. More stacks narrowed the passage on the stairs to the second floor.
    "The guy was a mail carrier but he never opened his mail?" I asked.
    "No. The guy was a mail carrier who stole other people's mail, which he didn't open. It'll take a month or more to sort through all of it, figure out what to throw away and what to try to deliver. Some of this stuff goes back years. A whole lot of