Read Online A String of Beads by Thomas Perry - Free Book Online Page A

charging me with assault.”
    “And you said . . .”
    “I said, ‘I hope you won’t waste your time doing that, because the bar was full of
     regulars who saw him take a swing at me out of drunken belligerence. That’s probably
     why nobody helped him up before you got there. They didn’t want to have to knock him
     back down themselves. ’ ”
    “I take it the police decided to waste their time.”
    “They did. They made it misdemeanor assault. I pleaded self-defense, and they set
     a hearing. It was supposed to be May third. I got a public defender and lined up a
     dozen witnesses. Then, on April twenty-fifth, the cops came to my place again. They
     said this Nick Bauermeister had gotten murdered, and they liked me as the suspect.”
    “How was he killed?”
    “He was shot with something on the order of a thirty-aught-six rifle from a moderate
     distance—maybe a hundred yards. He lived in the country with a girlfriend, and they
     shot him through a lighted window at night. This was not great, because in the western
     half of the state there are probably six people who couldn’t have made that shot,
     and I don’t know any of them. But because I’d been in the army and gone to Iraq and
     Afghanistan, I made a great sniper suspect. Prosecutors love it when you’ve served
     your country.”
    “So they just assumed you killed him because of that fight?”
    “Well, you know how we are.”
    “Who? Veterans?”
    “Indians.”
    “Wily,” she said. “Skulking around in the woods, tracking and hunting people.”
    “Yep.”
    “In other words, they didn’t have any real suspects?”
    “Apparently not.”
    “Do you have an alibi for the night of the murder?”
    “I was at my mother’s house until nine, and then went home and got to bed around ten.
     I had to be at work on a construction job at six the next morning.”
    “You had witnesses to the fight in the bar, and I assume the police didn’t have a
     murder weapon or anybody to place you at the crime scene.”
    “Right. No evidence.”
    “So why did you take off?”
    “Because evidence was starting to appear.”
    “What kind?”
    “Somebody who said he sold me a thirty-aught-six rifle for cash at a garage sale.
     Not just sold some guy a rifle. Sold one to me, picked my picture out of a stack of
     pictures, and remembered my name.”
    “Interesting. Did you know him?”
    “Never seen him; never heard his name before. I’ll bet I haven’t gone to a garage
     sale since my mother took me at the age of fifteen. Right about then I used to outgrow
     my clothes in a couple of hours, so she bought some of them secondhand.”
    “What is his name?”
    “Slawicky,” said Jimmy. “Walter Slawicky.”
    “That’s progress. We know the name of the man who is trying to frame you. Or one of
     them, if there are more.”
    “Not enough progress.”
    “It wasn’t a good idea to take off.”
    “Wasn’t it?” he said.
    “They’re looking hard for you, Jimmy.”
    “How hard?”
    “They’re watching your mother’s house. As soon as I drove up and sat down on the porch,
     two state policemen drove up, probably to see if the car that had just arrived had
     brought you home. And there’s a state cop who’s a regular tracker a few miles behind
     me. I looked in his wallet to be sure that’s what he was. His name is Isaac Lloyd,
     and he’s a sergeant.”
    “They sent one state trooper after me? One?”
    Jane shook her head. “There’s no such thing as one state trooper. He’s just the guy
     out running point. If he finds a gum wrapper that you leave somewhere, he’ll call
     it in and there will be a hundred of them, five dogs, and a chopper.”
    “Good thing I don’t leave trash around.”
    “Your feet leave big footprints, and you have to buy food, and people see you from
     a distance, even if you don’t see them.”
    “So what am I supposed to do about that, Janie?”
    “Since you’re smart enough to ask, I’ll tell you what I’m