Read Online Deadline by John Dunning - Free Book Online Page A

had his first date with Diana Yoder. They went to a restaurant off Central Park and later to the New York Philharmonic. Symphony music bored Walker after a while, but being with her made up for it. After the concert she took him by her place for some talk and coffee. She didn’t offer him anything alcoholic; he didn’t see any booze anywhere in her place. There were no ashtrays. It was a simple apartment in the Sixties, a few blocks from the park. Her bedroom contained a small TV and a wall of books, mostly history. There was a small single bed, as in a nun’s cell. He found her mind alert and challenging. There may have been things she didn’t know at least something about, but he didn’t find them on that first date. She talked with ease about everything from jazz to current affairs. But she wasn’t authoritative or demanding. She challenged him without interrupting or raising her voice, simply by offering slants that perhaps he hadn’t considered. There seemed to be only one passion in her life, the proposition that women should be equal with men and they still had a long way to go. She found the hard-line feminists as arrogant and shallow as that unbearable housewives group that was working so hard and so dishonestly to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.
    Briefly she even talked about herself. She had had some instruction in tap dance, jazz and ballet. She admitted that she had started late. When he asked how she had done it, she said, “I worked like crazy,” and moved along to something else. He never did learn her age. He learned nothing about her family, and was a little afraid to ask. When the evening was over, he knew it without being told. He left with little fanfare, and didn’t try anything, not even a light kiss. She wasn’t a cold person; he could see that. But there was something about her that completely precluded any such attempts.
    Later, alone in his apartment, he couldn’t recall one time when their hands had touched.
    In the morning, Burke’s pictures were waiting on his desk. Burke had printed fewer than ten, but they were fine, as clear and detailed as Walker knew they would be. The first Melinda Baker shot was especially compelling. Burke had caught her in one brief moment with her glasses off. She looked to be about two feet away, staring right into their faces.
    Nor was there any mistaking the gaunt, strained faces of Hal and Barbara Gunther. With the long lens, Burke had captured a tension between them that Walker hadn’t noticed from the car. They looked angry, as if they had been arguing.
    He called Donovan at the FBI and set up a lunch for noon. Walker made the trip over to Brooklyn and they went to a Mexican joint where Donovan had been eating for fifteen years.
    Walker showed him the pictures.
    “Given the names and addresses of these people, what are the chances of getting a full make on all of them?”
    “How far back?”
    “As far back as they go.”
    “Sure, we could do that. Is that what you’re asking? I mean, are you doing a feature on the investigative prowess of the FBI? Or are you actually asking me to do your work for you again?”
    Walker looked pained. “Al, would I do that?”
    “The question is why, old friend? Give me a good reason why I should dig up a couple of private lives for you. The Bureau gets touchy about that these days. Tell me something, Walker. These people in trouble?”
    “I think they are.”
    “Federal trouble?”
    Walker shrugged.
    Donovan shuffled through the pictures. “So you finally got off the circus fire, huh, Walker?”
    Walker shook his head. “Same story.”
    Donovan stroked his chin. “That’s damned interesting.” Donovan looked through the pictures again. He stopped at the close-up of Melinda Baker. “This wouldn’t be the kid’s mother, would it?”
    Walker didn’t say anything. Donovan passed the pictures back across the table. For a while they didn’t speak. Finally Walker said, “It’s strictly QT, Al. You’ve