Dan Sharp Mysteries 6-Book Bundle. Jeffrey Round

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ man. Dan had caught him before he went on duty, surprised to learn he lived on this side of the reach.

      “All it tells you is that the woman doesn’t know shit from Monkshood. She could have got someone to do it for her. I told you that’s how she killed his horses.”

      “Unless they thought they were radishes and ate them accidentally in the field.” Saylor eyed him. “Horses are pretty stupid. It’s happened before, you know.” They were sitting in Saylor’s car, parked a few hundred yards offshore from where a ferry tugged its load into place, lining up with the dock to release its conscripts. Dan watched the doors open and the cars surge forward. “And even if I dredge Lake on the Mountain, what am I going to find?”

      Dan considered this. He hadn’t worked out the details. Something still wasn’t sitting right. “I don’t think you’re going to find his body up there — I think he’s buried somewhere on the Killingworths’ grounds.”

      “Really!” It was more a statement of disbelief than surprise. “You actually think this woman is stupid or daring enough to murder her husband in her home and plant his body in her garden somewhere?”

      “He got off the ferry on this side of the harbour on the afternoon of November first and was never seen again.”

      Saylor looked off in the distance. “See that road? It goes on to Kingston. And a hell of a lot more places after that. What makes you think he even stopped at home before leaving? He was under strict court order to avoid his family. It could only have made things worse for him. And why would she kill him and bury him in the garden even if he did disobey the order?”

      “I don’t know.” Dan shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t seem all that likely, does it?”

      Saylor shook his head. “Not if you know small towns, it doesn’t. There’s hardly a secret that escapes somebody’s notice. Though whether they’re respected or revealed is anybody’s guess, but no — she wouldn’t bury her husband on the grounds. I can almost guarantee it.”

      “You said ‘almost.’”

      Saylor shot Dan a look. “Give me a break, buddy. She would never do it.”

      “Okay, what about the lake?”

      Saylor still looked doubtful. “Let me get this straight. You think she poisoned her husband, then dumped him in the trunk of her car and drove his body across on the ferry up to Lake on the Mountain? And she then dragged him across the road and dropped him into a lake frequented by tourists…?” Saylor stared at him. “Do you see how flimsy this is?”

      Dan sighed. He was right. It sounded crazy coming from Saylor’s mouth.

      “You can’t file a murder charge against someone without a body or at least some major evidence pointing to murder. You don’t have either, and you may never have.” Saylor paused to listen to a radio report. When it was over, he looked at Dan again. “In the meantime, don’t be surprised if I have to serve you with a restraining order. Burgess is going to be all over me the second he hears about this. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t charge you with attempted murder if she figures out what those flowers were.”

      Dan started to protest. Pete wagged a stubby white finger under Dan’s nose. “I don’t want to hear you’ve gone back there again. I know you mean well, but I’ve got a job to do. Please — don’t get in my way again.”

      Twenty-Four

      Terminal

      “Mr. Dan Sharp?”

      The voice tugged at him like a rusty razor blade.

      “Yes?”

      “This is Magnus Ferguson.”

      Dan felt a bottomless space open under him. He listened, ears glued to every inflection, as Magnus described how the note Dan tucked into his mailbox had been forwarded to his current address.

      “Anyway,” he said, finally getting around to the heart of the matter. “I understand you have some questions for me.”

      “Yes, I do. I’m looking into a disappearance that took place some years ago. Did you once work for a man named Craig Killingworth?”

      Ten, fifteen seconds evaporated. Dan thought Magnus wasn’t going to answer or was scouring the storeroom of memory to retrieve a lost file. Then he said, “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.”

      “Then you did work for him?”

      “What is this about?” came Magnus’s savaged rasp.

      “I’m a missing persons investigator.”

      “So your card said.”

      “I’ve been hired to find Craig Killingworth.”

      “Who are you working for? Is it Lucille?” the man asked suspiciously.

      “If I told you I don’t know who I’m working for, you might find that difficult to believe or understand, but I can tell you I’m definitely not working for Lucille Killingworth. I had a rather unpleasant call from Lucille’s lawyer last week warning me not to pursue the matter.”

      Dan heard Magnus chuckling on the other end. “Oh, she can be persuasive, all right!”

      “Do you know where Mr. Killingworth is now, by any chance?”

      Magnus snorted. “He’s dead.”

      “Do you know that for a fact?”

      “Oh, I know it all right.”

      “May I ask how you…?”

      “No, sir — I will not discuss this over the phone. I don’t trust the phone.” Dan waited. “You come here and I’ll give you proof.”

      Magnus agreed to meet with Dan on the island. “I haven’t been back out to my trailer for a long time,” he said. “I think it’s time I paid a visit.”

      Anywhere else, and at the very least they would have been hookers. In some parts of the world their dress would have got them killed. Here, they were schoolgirls having a lark — fishnet stockings, high-heels, pert fresh-cut hair, trim buffed nails, and pretty, chirpy smiles.

      Dan and Donny navigated the narrow aisle leading to the back of the Walnut Café. With its Korean décor and mostly Korean clientele, the place was known mainly for one thing: a menu consisting of walnut-shaped nuggets of nougat-filled delight, with side orders of sugar-coated berry or seaweed pancakes, and lacy, tongue-shrinkingly sweet cookies. Make that two things: it also had the worst coffee Dan had ever tasted. It was Donny’s favourite café.

      In the back room, they found a chipped table among the coat racks and stacked take-out boxes. Inflected Korean syllables filled the air. On TV and in newspapers, reporters bemoaned once-liberal Canada’s growing racism, as evidenced in the polls and statistics revealing a negative attitude toward the country’s burgeoning immigrant population. Are we no longer the tolerant, accepting land we once were? I doubt it, Dan thought, looking around him. The question was wrongly put. Canadians were what they’d СКАЧАТЬ