[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sergeant. It looks like I’ve been robbed.”
    “That’s a lot of money to be carrying around. Only people I know with that much cash are drug dealers and pimps.” He paused long enough to study my reaction. It made me very uncomfortable. He had piercing-blue eyes that seemed to be reading my mind.
    “I cashed in a CD before leaving Colorado.”
    “Strange they didn’t take everything. Are all your credit cards there?”
    One of my credit cards was missing. Ironically, it was a card I couldn’t use because I had maxed out my credit limit on it. “It looks like my VISA card is missing.”
    The sergeant opened a filing drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. “I’m supposed to do this on the computer, but that’s not why I asked you to come in. You can fill this out and give it to the girl at the front desk when you have time, and if I was you, I’d cancel that card.” Then he slid the form across his uncluttered desk without taking his eyes off me. I would never be able to do that at my desk back home. I usually had every square inch covered with notes, bills, or various papers. I envied this guy’s tidiness. It was either a sign of organization or a person with something to hide.
    I glanced at the form he gave me. It was an accident report with boxes for all the information he must have already had in his computer. “Don’t you already have this information in your report?” I asked.
    “More or less. But we need a signature to make it official. What we don’t have are the details of the accident. How did you manage to wreck your van at that particular spot in the road? We know you weren’t drinking, and there’s no skid marks. Did you pull over at that spot to take a leak or something?”
    “No. I swerved to avoid a deer. He jumped right in front of me, and the jerk behind me decided to pass at the same time. I missed the deer, but the passing car clipped the back of my van and sent me over the ditch.”
    Bennet’s computer beeped at him, and he glanced at his monitor. “Quite a coincidence when you think about it,” he said while typing something on his keyboard. “You went off the road at almost the same spot as your brother-in-law. Lucky you hit that tree. Your sister’s husband wasn’t as fortunate.”
    I thought I saw a gleam in his eyes when he turned back toward me. “Tell me about the car that clipped your rear? Did you happen to notice the make or model?”
    “No. It was too dark. You don’t think it was the driver of the other car that robbed me, do you?”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time someone took advantage of an accident. It would help if you could describe the other vehicle. At the least, they committed a felony by leaving the scene of an accident.” He was staring into my head again. He must have been with the Gestapo in a previous life. “Unless, of course, there never was another vehicle involved, and the cash in your wallet never existed.”
    His tone put me on the defensive again. “Call my bank if you don’t believe me, Sergeant. They can verify that I cashed out a CD before I left Colorado.”
    He smiled the grin of a hunter with a big buck in his cross hairs. “I don’t believe in coincidence, so I ran you through the system. You and your sister have quite a history of collecting from insurance companies. Two total wrecks in less than a year. You want to know what I think really happened.” His voice had risen a few decibels, causing the clerk in the adjoining room to poke her head through the open door.
    “I think your sister had you stop at the scene where she dumped her husband’s body, maybe to retrieve some incriminating evidence. You must have lost control of your van trying to jump the ditch and crashed into the tree. Can we just cut to the chase and tell me what you were looking for, Mr. Martin?”
    “This is crazy, Sergeant. Those wrecks were my ex-wife’s. She’s a terrible driver. And I had no idea that was where Mike went off the