Read Online Flashback by Ted Wood - Free Book Online

been recovered. Have you spoken to him since?'  
    'No, why?' She had hazel eyes and there were tiny flecks of gold in the pupils, she was almost beautiful, I realized, but too square in the face, too strong to be appealing to most men.  
    'Because there was a woman's body in the trunk.' I watched her and she gasped and almost dropped her glass. It looked genuine. She stared at me for a long moment, then took a quick gulp of her drink.  
    'She drowned when his car went into the lake. Waites thought it was his wife at first.'
    'It wasn't?'
    'No. It was another woman, similar in appearance. He identified her later as a friend of his wife's, a Carolyn Jeffries.'
    Now her composure had gone. She set down her drink and stood up, hugging her arms around her. I sat and said nothing until she turned to speak to me. 'What are you trying to tell me?'  
    'Nothing that isn't public knowledge,' I said. 'It's just that I lead a quiet life here. Then, in one day there are two teen-gang incidents and a homicide. The car with the body in it had been roughed up the way kids might have done it. That's all I have, but I see you in touch with all the players and I wondered if there was anything you wanted to tell me.'  
    'Like what?' There was a cigarette box on the coffee table and she opened it and took one out. She looked around for matches but couldn't see any. I stood up and took out a pack of Lakeside Tavern matches and lit for her. She cupped my hand as she took the light and I could feel that she was trembling.  
    'Like, is there some connection that I'm not seeing? Between Waites and this actor whose name you haven't told me yet.'
    'I know them both,' she said softly. 'John Waites is my lawyer. Eric Hanson is an actor. I know both of them, professionally.'
    'I'd like to talk to Hanson. Do you know where he is?'
    'No.' She said it quickly, then took a quick drag on her cigarette and said, 'No, I'm sorry, I don't know. If you call my office in the morning they'll put you in touch with his agent. He'll tell you.'  
    'That would be helpful, Ms Tracy, and I'd appreciate it, but it would be even better if I could talk to him tonight. If you could tell me, for instance, whether he's here now. Then I could talk to him and get out of your life.'
    'He's not. And I don't like your tone.' She was suddenly all angles, lean and rigid as she stubbed the cigarette and tugged her housecoat closer at the throat. 'Please leave.'  
    I stood up. 'Thank you for the help, Ms Tracy.' I was going by the book now, lots of formality, no rudeness, leaving right away. She would have no cause to complain about me to the village council or the Police Commission.  
    She said nothing and I put on my cap and left, clicking my tongue for Sam who had been waiting outside.
    I drove slowly down the road around the lake, past Pickerel Point Lodge. It isn't big, by city standards, a couple of dozen rooms, two tennis courts and a beach and private dock with a row of good-sized cruisers tied up. By night it looks its best, the floodlights and the light at the end of the dock magnifying the importance of everything. I could see a fisherman on the dock, using a surface lure by the look of it, retrieving in slow stages, hoping to prod a pickerel into action.  
    I debated going in to see if Waites had gone back to Toronto but decided against it. I had nothing specific to ask him and he was a lawyer, he'd brush me off like a fly and it might screw up Holland's investigation, whenever that happened. So I took one last spin through town, checking the locks on all the properties that were closed for the night, then headed up the highway. But I was still restless and I slowed as I passed each motel, checking the parking lot for the Ford that Eric Hanson had been driving. I wanted to know more about him, specifically if stealing the Accord had been part of the game he was playing with Marcia Tracy.  
    I recognized Hanson's Fairlane, ten miles north of the