Unhinged Read Online Free PDF Page B

mean sometimes. He was into S and M and whips and shit. I didn’t like that too much, so we stopped hanging out. He was a good guy outside the bedroom, but I was afraid some man whore might do something like this to him one day.”
    â€œCan you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to hurt Ryan? Anyone he was seeing recently?” I said, giving Ron a break from asking questions.
    â€œAs far as I know, everyone liked Ryan. But ever since we stopped seeing each other, I hardly spoke with him. I can’t help you there.”
    Ron handed him his card. “If you think of anything, give me a call.”
    â€œDon’t worry. I will. The last thing we need is someone killing us because we’re gay.”
    â€œThat may not be the motivation,” I said and spun around to head down the stairs.
    Ron paused to give Kenny a little advice. “Hey, you ought to think about buying some deodorant. You smell like ass cabbage.”
    â€œThanks, Detective, but I choose not to bathe every day and contaminate my body with chemicals. Besides, the human scent is sexy.”
    â€œYes, human scent, not day-old roadkill.” Ron shook his head as he followed me down the stairs. “I don’t think we should rule that guy out as a suspect.”
    I agreed. “We could send Bienvenue into Breaux’s undercover. He’s done a lot of undercover stuff, right? I heard he’s a cool cucumber.”
    â€œYeah, that’s not a bad idea.”
    The rest of the afternoon wasn’t so eventful. Unfortunately, Josh the bartender didn’t see anything. He smelled of soap and was honest and forthright, and his alibi checked out. The DJ Lamar was a dead end, and Kyle Singleton seemed to play dumb at first, but come to find out, he really was. I had never made light of anyone’s lack of intelligence except for specific acts of ditziness, but this kid was a moron. I wasn’t even sure if he knew he was working in a gay bar. After several questions, we were convinced he didn’t know anything.
    Everyone’s separate accounts of Friday night were nearly identical in that they were especially busy and there wasn’t time to pay attention to Ryan’s latest screw. Josh backed up Toliver’s statement that Ryan was one queer who liked it rough.

I t was 5:45 p.m. I was tired and glad to be at my desk in a cool office. Still, we weren’t any closer to finding the killer. One of our officers had located June’s parents in Arkansas, and Greenwood called their local precinct, so they could inform them in person. No family had yet been found for Ryan Gant.
    Ron called detective buddies who had stayed on the job after the hurricane to see if they had come across past cases with similar MOs. Occasionally I listened in to his phone conversations and was amazed at the number of people he knew. Most of each conversation started with who ended up where since Katrina.
    I sorted through a stack of folders of sex offenders and ran the particulars through the computer for a match. I didn’t recall ever hearing about murders like this, and I was doubtful that anything would turn up in the case files.
    I couldn’t stifle my yawns but tried to focus when I came to the realization I was barking with the big dogs now. This was my first major case and it was a doozy, but this was what I had wished for, right? I loved that I had this opportunity to save lives by taking down a murderer. Every angle had to be looked at; every fact had to be dissected and categorized. If something was missed, the press as well as the public could hang us. Cases like this could make or break a career.
    Ron hung up the phone and abruptly rose from his desk. “All right, let’s go down to Jo-Jo’s Cabaret. It’s time to question some strippers.”
    This was probably going to be a detail that I would leave out when I told Jennifer about my day. Not that she’d mind that I was at a strip club,