Ice Lake: A gripping crime debut that keeps you guessing until the final page. John Lenahan A

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Harry said, “a pro hit?”

      “It doesn’t feel like it. There were no bruises on the guy so I’m inclined to say that he knew the shooter and was walking in front of him without a care in the world. Also pros don’t usually use shotguns.”

      “Effective though, wouldn’t you say? You can’t get ballistics from a shotgun, and I don’t suppose the shooter left any empty shells with his fingerprints on them?”

      “This place was littered with shotgun shells when we first got here. This is the local shooting range. But there weren’t any around where the shooter must have been standing. We picked up all the empties but we won’t get anything out of them.

      “Any forensics – footprints, tyre tracks?”

      “This is also the big teenage party spot. The vic seemed to have been cleaning it up. We found a plastic bag of bottles and cans with his prints on ’em. Word has it that there was a shindig up here three nights ago. So there are zillions of tyre treads. The local boy that found the vic came up to target practice. He drove over any tracks that would have been there, as did the local cops when they got here.”

      “When was he shot?”

      “Two days ago, just before midday. He was still a little warm when the boy found him.”

      “Anybody hear anything?”

      “Nobody around to hear. The only building close enough is the strip club but nobody would be there before noon.”

      “A strip club you say? I think we need to investigate. Wouldn’t be called Nirvana by any chance?”

      Cirba shook his head, walked over to a tree and removed the last remaining bit of crowd control tape. “There will be no investigating in any strip clubs. When you see the place, you’ll see that this is not Vegas – and that’s no lie. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you mentioned Nirvana again.”

      “Oops. So who was the vic?”

      Cirba sat down at one of the makeshift benches by the firepit. “He was a local guy named William Thomson – everybody called him Big Bill. Just turned thirty, been in trouble all his younger years, almost flunked out of high school, got busted for selling pot and for some graffiti stuff when he was a minor. I arrested him myself for joyriding, but his dad knew the man whose car he stole, so he got off. I knew his father, he was a really good guy. I’m glad he’s gone – this would’a killed him. Actually, Bill was a good kid. He got in trouble but he had that bad kid charm that made it so you couldn’t get mad at him. You know the type?”

      Harry nodded. “The mayor said he worked for him.”

      “Yeah, that’s the thing. Bill hadn’t been in trouble for years. His brother, Frank, inherited his dad’s old construction company. In the summer he worked for him, and in the winter he helped out as the handyman/super at the mayor’s ski condos where he had a basement apartment. We searched the place but there wasn’t much in it – a real bachelor pad. There were a lot of the mayor’s real estate books, weights for lifting, and a laptop. The laptop and the no-contract phone he was wearing when he got shot were both password-protected. They’re with the crime lab now.” The trooper took off his hat and wiped his brow.

      “So who wanted him dead?”

      “Don’t know but they tell me it’s my job to find out. In his younger days he used to hang out with a character that Narco’ thinks is cooking most of the crystal meth in the area. Feel like meeting the local freelance pharmacist?”

      “Sure,” Harry said. “Then can we go to the strip club?”

      * * *

      There is a winding stretch on the Five Mile Road that has a series of banked s-turns. Legend has it that the road was originally an Algonquin hunting path – this bunch of turns is known locally as the Drunken Indians. People from all over, especially ones with new sports cars, make a trip here to speed through the racetrack-like bends. It’s not unusual to find Dom Barowski, the local Oaktree cop, sitting in a hidden spot at the end of the Drunken Indians with his speed camera. Two hours a day there pretty much funds Dom’s full salary.

      Cirba took the Drunken Indians at high speed as Harry held on to the handle above his head. He honked and waved at Dom as he shot out of the last turn.

      “I see the local constabulary doesn’t mind you busting up their speed limits,” Harry said as he straightened back up in his seat.

      “Professional courtesy,” Cirba said.

      “Are there any other turns like that between here and Oaktree or can I throw up now?”

      “Throw up in my squad car and I’ll arrest you, Harry.”

      “For what?”

      “For throwing up in my squad car.”

      “The taxi driver in Vegas was cool when you threw up out his—”

      “Seriously, will you stop talking about that night?”

      They turned onto a back road before entering town and ended up in a section that wasn’t in the brochure produced by the Oaktree Chamber of Commerce. Ed slowed to a crawl while negotiating the potholes. The sides of the road were strewn with litter, bottles, and the occasional roadkill. They passed white wooden houses, one after another, all desperately needing paint jobs and lawn mowing. Behind chain-link fences in almost every yard, a large dog barked so loud that Harry had to raise his voice a bit.

      “They don’t seem to like you.”

      “I used to be a dog lover before I took this job,” Cirba said. “I think some of these hillbillies have actually trained their dogs to attack anyone in a state police uniform.”

      “How would they do that?”

      “I don’t know but listen to them.”

      Cirba slowed past another house, this one in better shape than the rest. The grass was still high and there was a bumperless body of an old Chevy Impala on the lawn but the house was newly painted, with modern windows behind metal security grates. Cirba drove by and said: “How about some lunch?”

      “We’re not buying crack?”

      “His car’s not there. Come on, I’ll treat you to the finest potato pancakes in north-east Pennsylvania.”

      They exited pothole city and swung onto Main Street. Trooper Cirba drove slowly as he texted something on his cell phone. Here the town looked every bit like the Pocono Mountain dream that real estate agents and holiday home builders put on the front of their brochures. All the buildings on Main Street were old-school wood and painted the same brick red. There was a quaint hardware store, the kind you could imagine buying nails by the pound, that outside had a display of weathervanes. There was a fruit and vegetable stand laid out so pretty that it looked like a postcard. Next to that was a sporting goods store and then a pizza shop. It all had that mid-Atlantic rustic charm that made city slickers sigh.

      The Oaktree Diner was at the end of the street. Harry and Trooper Cirba entered and walked to a booth in the back. A 70-year-old guy with a grey beard and a matching grey braided ponytail said: “Uh oh, it’s the fuzz.”

      Cirba СКАЧАТЬ