Vanessa Gray Bartal - Lacy Steele 07 - Icy Grip of Murder Read Online Free PDF

a
search was made for a proper guardian and the legal wheels stopped turning, he
wasn’t so cute anymore. He was put in the system and moved from home to home
until he eventually ended up in a group home. Some call it an orphanage, but
that has an ugly connotation. It was a good place run by good people. Anyway,
somewhere along the way, Michael discovered a gift for stealing things. From
there he moved on to burglary and finally car theft. That was his first arrest
when he was fourteen.
    “The judge was a soft touch and
gave him probation with the admonition to get his act together. Michael
promised that he would, although the statement had a different meaning to him.
Instead of getting on the straight and narrow, he just got better at committing
crimes. Most of the pages in this book are things that we knew he did but could
never prove. Some of them were harmless pranks, such as freezing the police
chief’s car in a giant block of ice. Some of them were not so lighthearted.
We’re still trying to figure out how a sixteen year old robbed the bank. He
only got a few hundred bucks, but the fact that we could never pin it on him
was galling, as you can imagine.
    “During this time when he was
perfecting his technique, he gained a few followers. They became a little gang,
but the problem was that they were likable. It was very much a Robin Hood
situation. To the outside observer, it seemed that we mean police officers were
persecuting this harmless group of well-behaved kids. We knew the truth,
however. All the little things that were going missing in town, all the petty
thefts, annoying vandalisms and pranks were because of Michael and his gang.
    “So you can see that we had a
fairly contentious history already, and the kid wasn’t even out of high school
yet. The real irony here is that he was a smart kid, good student, talented
musician, and star hockey player. He could have gone places. Instead he
graduated and stayed here, annoying us for the sake of annoying us, it seemed.”
    “Pardon me for interrupting, but I
still don’t see how any of this is leading up to murder,” Lacy said.
    “Don’t you? The pattern is clear to
me. Smith’s crimes grew in nature, the way that tends to happen with all career
criminals. In fact, if I were you, Miss Steele, I would call home and ask for a
money count. You might be surprised by how much is missing.”
    Lacy’s only response was to frown
at him. He shrugged and continued.
    “Anyway, I mentioned his gang. Most
of them were flunkies who never got it together as well as Michael. Most of
them we pick up on a regular basis. Their records are now bigger than his, so I
guess he can be proud of that. There was one, though, who had what it took.
Jenny could have gone big time, if she had lived that long.”
    Lacy remained
quiet. The officer arched an eyebrow. “No comment? Too
painful to hear about a rival? Believe me, I’m doing you a public
service. Michael has always had a way with the ladies, and Jenny was no
exception. It was actually sort of disappointing when we got access to her computer
records. He was pathetic there at the end, begging her not to break things off.
Then she did, and he killed her.”
    “What proof do you have?”
    “We don’t need proof. We simply need
enough evidence to present to the court.”
    “Fine, then what evidence do you
have?” she asked.
    “I’m not at liberty to say,” he
said.
    “But you were at liberty to divulge
everything else about his life to me,” she said.
    “Like I said before, public
service.”
    “I have to say, Officer Anderson,
that this sounds an awful lot like a vendetta.”
    He didn’t like that. She could tell
by the tightening of his lips and eyebrows. “See for yourself. If you see one
thing in here that contradicts what I’ve told you, I’m happy to take it all
back.” He slid the large folder to her and left. After returning a minute later
with a cup of coffee for her, he left her alone again. Lacy