The Fifth Floor Read Online Free PDF Page A

report on his desk. “At the corner of Paulina and Montrose.”
    “I know that,” she said.
    “That’s why you’re here.”
    “It was an accident. Is that against the law?”
    “You’re drunk, ma’am.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “I can smell it on you.”
    “No, you can’t.”
    “We found seven empty liquor bottles in your car.”
    “They’re my mother’s.”
    “You failed the field sobriety test.”
    “What’s that?”
    “When they asked you the alphabet.”
    “He was confusing me. I have a disability.”
    “Ma’am.”
    “Is this because I’m a woman?”
    “Ma’am, we’re going to administer a Breathalyzer.”
    Silence.
    “Ma’am?”
    “I have a drinking problem. It’s a disease.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I want my lawyer.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    We were all waiting for the legal eagle to show up when Masters shouldered his way into the room and sat down at the desk.
    “Sorry for the wait.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “I forgot how much fun this can be.”
    “Yeah.”
    “This your desk?”
    “I have an office now.”
    I hadn’t seen Masters in six months and he didn’t look any better for it. His face was the color of paste. His eyes were rimmed in red and full of water. His hand shook a bit as he moved some papers around, and he might have smelled of gin. Of course, that last bit could have wafted over from Miss Krispy Kreme next door, but I didn’t think so.
    “Anyone notice you sitting in here?” Masters talked in an undertone and swung his head around the bull pen. I swung around with him and shrugged.
    “Don’t know.”
    “No one came up and said hello.”
    “Don’t think so.”
    “Okay. Let’s go.”
    I followed Masters down a thin hallway to a solitary door with a sign on it that read room no. 1.
    “Step in here.”
    I walked into a small room with a wooden table and a row of blue chairs on one side. There was a TV and VCR in one corner and a dry-erase board in the other. The TV was turned off and the board had been wiped clean. Masters dropped a brown file folder on the table and sat in one of the chairs.
    “Sit down, Kelly.”
    I sat.
    “You talk to the press about the body on Hudson?”
    “Would we be sitting here if I had?”
    Masters nodded at the brown folder on the table between us.
    “This is the working file. Tell me what you know and you get a look-provided you keep your mouth shut. Offer up the usual happy horseshit and the conversation ends. Right now. I go to the county and file charges. Tampering with a crime scene. Obstruction of justice.”
    “They’ll never stick.”
    Masters shrugged. “Maybe not. But you’ll never get inside this file. And you want to get inside this file.”
    I looked at the brown file. Then I looked up at the detective. We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies. We trusted each other implicitly, except for the times when one of us didn’t. Like I said, Catullus. Right now, Masters’ face was split in half with a nasty sort of grin. Not a good sign.
    “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you, Kelly? How did you wind up at the house on Hudson yesterday? Let’s start with that and we’ll make it up from there.”
    Masters was right. I did want to get inside the file. I had no idea why, but that didn’t make me want it any less.
    “There are some things I can tell you,” I said. “Some things we just have to leave alone.”
    Masters leaned back in his chair and slipped his feet onto the table. “I’m listening.”
    “I was tailing someone for a client. The person I followed was in the house for less than a minute. No way he, or she, could have been the killer.”
    “Because they weren’t in the house long enough?”
    “Exactly.”
    “He, or she, could have killed this guy earlier and just been returning when you picked him, or her, up.”
    I shook my head.
    “I saw this person’s face when they left the house. Scared. Shook. Didn’t expect to find that body inside.”
    Masters dropped