The Slab Read Online Free PDF

investigation up at the Slab.”
    Carter’s eyes widened. It was barely perceptible, but it was the first indication Ken had seen that the man could be made to lose his cool. When Carter Haynes spoke again, there was new tension in his voice.
    “Do you think that’s absolutely necessary?”
    Ken just looked at him for a moment. “It’s a homicide investigation,” he said. “It isn’t something I can just sweep under the rug.”
    Carter looked around the office, waving a hand to indicate the surroundings. “You have a nice little set-up here, in a Mayberry kind of way,” he said. “Just imagine what you could do if you had an actual tax base here in Salton Estates. Luxury homes, real property taxes. You and Deputy Fife could buy some new trucks, upgrade that PC, maybe hire someone to answer the phones, you know?”
    “And I wouldn’t object to that,” Ken countered. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stall this investigation, if it turns out to be warranted.”
    “There’s a chance it won’t?” Carter’s tone was hopeful.
    “There will have to be some questions answered,” Ken replied. “I don’t know that it will turn out to be a full-fledged murder case. That’ll depend on the lab results.”
    “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Carter said.
    “Somehow,” Ken observed, “you don’t strike me as a man who relies a lot on luck.”
    ***
    Four of them had made the annual Dove Hunt for all thirteen years. Vic Bradford had joined two years in. One of them, Ray Dixon, was a relative newcomer, with only seven years. And this was the second year without Hal Shipp, who was still missed by everyone.
    Vic Bradford took mental stock as they cruised the towns of southern Riverside County. By now, it was all ritualized, done the same way every September. The first day, they said goodbye to their wives and families and piled into someone’s car, this time Cam Hensley’s Navigator. They drove up to the cabin they kept in a remote valley outside Blythe, unloaded their gear and groceries, and got down to some heavy drinking. The booze and storytelling went on most of the night, and finally they crashed for a few hours. The next day, bleary-eyed and hung over, the Dove Hunt began in earnest.
    When they’d first invited him to take part, Vic had felt a tangle of conflicting emotions. He had just turned thirty-two, still young but starting to think, now and again, about thirty-five and then the inevitable slide into the forties and beyond. He was past that now, of course, and he realized that the forties weren’t as bad as he’d feared back then. Now, though, it was his fifties that loomed, and that really scared him.
    He had felt honored to be asked. He’d heard that the other guys were going out hunting, of course. Then once he learned what it was really all about, he was appalled and intrigued and excited all at once.
    He was only peripherally a part of their crowd, he thought, until he realized that not having obvious social ties was part of the whole idea. Cam Hensley looked like an accountant, with his balding, graying hair and thick black glasses, but he was one of the wealthiest men in the Valley, owning tens of thousands of acres of prime farmland. The thing that bugged Vic about him was his forehead, bulbous, as if he had extra brains inside there trying to get out. And while his hairline had receded almost to the point of nonexistence, right at the top and center of that huge forehead was this patch of black hair, an island of hair, unconnected to the rest, that Cam refused to shave. He kept it trimmed, which was new—until a couple of years ago, he’d grown it out and tried to connect it to his other remnants of hair by creative combing. But still, it looked like an aberration and Vic wished he’d just shave it already.
    Silver-haired, tanned, and fit, Kelly Williams owned a Caterpillar dealership in El Centro. Kelly maintained an air of mystery about himself, though he occasionally talked