Read Online Due Diligence by Michael A. Kahn - Free Book Online

other suspects before you found out about the accident?”
    He shook his head solemnly.
    â€œIf Worrell was the one who killed him, why would he report his car as stolen?”
    â€œStupidity. Maybe he thought it would make him seem innocent. I don’t pretend to know how his mind worked.”
    â€œDid he have an alibi?”
    â€œNot much of one. The three who survived, they claimed they’d all been playing cards that night in his basement.” He shook his head. “Pretty lame.”
    I studied Nichols. “Detective, do you think Worrell and his thugs killed him?”
    He thought it over and scratched his neck uncomfortably. “I just don’t know, Miss Gold. Looking back, it sure seems more likely than not. You just don’t ever know for sure. Some cases end like that.”
    I thanked him and drove back to my office.
    I’d gone to the police station for reassurance. More than anything, I wanted to know that David’s murder had been avenged. I’d gone to see Detective Nichols hoping for the closure I needed to get on with my life. He wasn’t able to give me that.
    It just don’t feel right .
    ***
    â€œFor chrissakes,” Benny said as he refilled my wineglass, “the only thing missing is a signed confession.”
    I picked moodily at my salad. “That’s a big thing to be missing.”
    â€œRachel, the reason he didn’t sign a confession is that the cops blew his fucking head off before they could hand him a pen.”
    In an effort to cheer me up, Benny had invited me over to his apartment for dinner.
    â€œWhat if Worrell and his men were set up?” I asked.
    Benny looked at me as if I were crazy. “What makes you think they were set up?”
    I shrugged. “Detective Nichols said that the murder looked like it had been done by a pro. What kind of professional hit man would be clumsy enough to ram into another car while leaving the scene of the crime?”
    â€œBut these weren’t professional hit men, Rachel. They were slimeballs with room-temp IQs.”
    â€œMaybe. Or maybe they were professional hit men who wanted to make sure that someone would be able to remember that one particular car was in David’s neighborhood on the night of the murder. What better way than to smash it into another car?”
    â€œWhich means you have to assume that your professionals really did steal his car.”
    â€œRight.”
    Benny raised his eyebrows. “Rachel, you’re getting to sound like one of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy nuts.”
    â€œIt’s not far-fetched.”
    â€œRight,” he said sarcastically.
    â€œIt’s not,” I protested. “If someone else wanted him dead, what better way to do it than to make it look like the crime was committed by a neo-Nazi group? And don’t forget that anonymous telephone tip.”
    â€œWhoa,” Benny said, signaling for a time-out. “Now you’re saying that the phone call was part of the setup?”
    â€œWhat better way to panic a violent paranoid into a shootout with the cops?”
    â€œWait a minute. Doesn’t it make more sense that it was from a sympathetic cop involved in the investigation?”
    â€œA cop?” I asked.
    â€œOf course a cop. Is it beyond the realm of reason to suppose that there might be at least one rural Missouri cop who is sympathetic to the tenets of a white supremacist organization?”
    I thought it over. “Maybe. But not necessarily. If someone wanted to blame David’s murder on Eugene Worrell and then increase the odds that Worrell would be dead before his trial, you’d make sure someone told him that the government had framed him and was now coming to kill him.”
    â€œSomeone?” Benny said. “Who’s this mysterious someone who wants David Marcus dead? Oliver North? Ernst Blofeld? Come on, Rachel. He was a decent, good-hearted rabbi who once played minor