Read Online Eleven Little Piggies by Elizabeth Gunn - Free Book Online

professional?’
    â€˜Well . . . sure . . . although it looks like they have a couple of hands that are pretty good meat-cutters. But I’m talking about little dimply marks in some of the carcasses. Did you see that, Clint?’
    â€˜Some small holes – looked like maybe the animal ran up against a barbed wire fence, or . . .’
    â€˜Or if you think about it,’ Rosie said, ‘couldn’t they have been scattershot? Overspray made by little pellets like the ones we watched Pokey picking out of the snow?’
    I was already turning to go out the door. I had asked LeeAnn to put Ethan in an interview room and I knew he would not take kindly to a long wait. But when I turned back, those two faces, Rosie’s and Clint’s, were looking at me with identical expressions. Clint was back on Rosie’s team, his eyes alight. Hers were too; they looked like a pair of barn owls that have just heard a mouse rustle.
    â€˜You’re right, by God, now that you say it . . .’ Clint said, ‘and we might still be able to dig out one or two . . . and if they match . . .’
    â€˜Jesus, you two.’ I walked back to the table. ‘You don’t make things easy, you know that?’
    Rosie said, ‘If I hadn’t been so tired Saturday night . . .’
    â€˜All right,’ I said. ‘Shut up and listen, because we’re all out of time. Rosie, call Judge Cartwright, get her to reopen the search warrant. Clint, while she’s doing that, get a lab crew together, tell them what you suspect and that you need them to come along with you right away – bring the Luminol or whatever they’re using to raise blood spatter now . . .’
    â€˜Jake,’ Clint said, ‘there’s going to be blood traces everywhere in that cooler.’
    â€˜Let me finish. Take somebody along who’s qualified to lift a DNA sample . . . dig down in that drain where you thought the remains of Owen might have been flushed – isn’t that what you thought? Because I need you to bring back some good stuff, or we’re all going to get certified as lunatics. The three of us,’ I said, turning to the rest of my crew, who were watching us walleyed, ‘Andy and Winnie and I, we’ll handle these interviews. Right?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Winnie said, pleased with this part of the play.
    Clint grinned at me. ‘Hope you’re wearing your big-boy pants today,’ he said. ‘Ethan’s a tough nut.’
    â€˜Say one more word,’ I said, ‘and I’ll go to the farm myself and leave you here to do this interview.’
    He knew I was bluffing. I’d been making do with hearsay evidence long enough. Today nobody was going to cheat me out of a first-hand look at the Kester family.

FIVE
    E ven allowing for the absence of deathly pallor, I didn’t see much resemblance between the brothers when I met Ethan in the interview room. He looked a lot younger than Owen, for one thing. He was sleeker and showed less wear, and had smooth hands. It was only after he took off his hat and coat that I discovered his hairline, forehead and nose were almost identical to his brother’s. With his hat off he looked older, too – nearer Owen’s age.
    He was better groomed and dressed than his brother but less attractive, with the sallow skin and liverish look of a man who never got much exercise. I could imagine him hunched over his desk, scowling at a computer screen in a dim room. The reality of his brother’s death had begun to eat at him, too – almost literally: he looked leaner than his picture on his firm’s Facebook page. His mouth was clamped tight and turned down at the corners – plainly, Ethan Kester was not a happy man.
    I’d asked LeeAnn to set him up in an interview room because I wanted everything we said on tape. We