Read Online Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection by Dane Hartman - Free Book Online

wallowing in it. It seemed to Harry that the anchor people could hardly contain their beaming smiles as they rattled off the rumors they had been able to barely substantiate so far. Harry heard it all on his black and white set with the coat hanger standing in for the broken antennae. As he changed clothes, showered and shaved in his third floor apartment, he corrected the report as the toothy local newsman went along.
    “A scene of horror was uncovered today when the police discovered a burial ground on the side of Mount Douglas near John McLaren Park late last night . . .”
    “Early this morning,” Harry said aloud.
    “. . . At least a dozen bodies were dug up . . .”
    “A half dozen.”
    “. . . by Sheriff’s officials . . .”
    “The Justice Department medical staff.”
    “. . . All the victims were women.”
    Callahan couldn’t argue with him there. What he could disagree with was that the report was given at all. It was just what some poor girl needed on her way to work. While it might make her a little more careful, it certainly wouldn’t illuminate the matter, which would lead to meaningless paranoia.
    “For more on the story, let’s go to Ted Burnett at McLaren Park . . . Ted?”
    The picture quickly changed to that of a neatly dressed man picking up the morning newspaper outside his quaint cape house.
    “Thank you, John,” intoned another voice, although the speaker wasn’t the man who held the paper. “Little did Trevor Samuels know that when he went out early this morning to walk his dog, that he would be walking right into the middle of a gruesome murder scene,” the voice continued. “Samuels had always lived on this quiet residential street a few blocks from the park . . . seemingly an oasis from inner city violence . . . that is, until this morning.”
    The scene shifted to the face of a fat woman standing on her lawn in a moo-moo and slippered feet with a microphone stuck in her face. The legend on the bottom of the screen read ‘Mrs. Howard Fratellini’ and below that, ‘Neighbor.’
    “We moved here to get away from all that stuff, you know,” the audio caught her saying in mid-sentence. “We didn’t like all that stuff so we came here for a little quiet.”
    “But that quiet was shattered today when Mr. Samuels slipped near the McLaren Reservoir, letting go of his pet’s leash,” the reporter continued, the camera looking over the guarded, cordoned-off area near the hill. “It wasn’t only a lost dog he had to worry about. It was what the dog brought back clenched in its teeth. It was a skull . . . a human skull.”
    “It was a human skull,” Harry saw Samuels say. “I couldn’t believe it. A real skull. Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather, I was so surprised. Nothing like that ever happens around here.”
    “ ‘Nothing like that ever happens around here,’ ” Ted Burnett quoted ominously, now fully on camera in his tie and trenchcoat, holding the mike to his own chin. “Well, John, it looks like hoping is just not enough to keep the specter of violent crime away from any door in our city. And the major questions remain. Will the police be any more successful in finding these victims’ killers than they have been with all the other unsolved murders so far this year? Will this Mortician Murderer strike again? Is there anyplace safe? Is anyone?”
    Here the reporter paused ominously, then signed off. “Ted Burnett . . . Eyewitness Action News.”
    Harry went at the set from the bathroom. He just managed to keep himself from putting his leg through the picture tube as anchorman John continued with professional seriousness.
    “Thank you, Ted. Violence against women is not new in the City by the Bay, but it seems as if it has reached epidemic proportions this year. For background on this story, here’s Connie Baxter. Connie?”
    It was impressive in its callous slickness. Callahan had to hand it to them. Not only had they stirred up terror and