Read Online Harmless by Ernie Lindsey - Free Book Online

for a week after that.
    I took a deep breath
and ignored his jab.  “I really need your help.”
    There may have been a
small twitter of a chuckle.  “Yes, I’m aware you need help, but not from me.”
    I exploded.  “I don’t
mean that kind!”  I couldn’t contain myself.  I was offended.
    “I’m hanging up now,
Steve.”
    “Thank you.”
    “For what?”
    “You called me Steve.”
    “Steve?”
    “What?”
    “I’m going back to
bed.  Reach deep down inside that brain of yours and erase my number, got it? 
Delete it from your phone.  Forget you ever had any contact with me.  I hate to
be a dick, because you seem like a nice guy—you’ve got a few screws loose, but
you seem like a nice guy, so do me a nice guy favor and quit calling me, okay?”
    It hurt.  I’d thought
we were friends.  But I’d gotten used to letting things go.  Or, I should say,
I’d gotten used to having things taken from me.  “Okay.  Fine.  Can you at
least tell me what I’m supposed to do about Kerry?”
    “She’s your neighbor?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’d advise you to
leave her alone, too, before you get yourself in trouble.”
    “No, I mean about her
body.  I can’t just call 9-1-1, they’ll screw it up.  She deserves better than
that.”
    There was a long
pause.  “What do you mean, her body ?”
    “That’s what I’ve been
trying to tell you.  Somebody murdered her.”
    “You’d better not be messing
with me.”
    “I’m serious!  I’m
looking at it right now.”
    Another pause.  “You
didn’t—”
    “Me?  No!  Listen—the
Giants were down by two in the ninth.  I remember it specifically because
Russell was up at the plate and I was kinda pissed that they’d subbed him in to
pinch hit because the guy’s been in a hell of a slump for the past month.  So
right as he’s about to strike out—”
    “Did you kill her?”
    “I didn’t—you know me
better than that.  I mean, you should .  I heard something that sounded
like a gunshot, and when I looked outside, somebody tossed her out her window.”
    “They tossed her out
the window?”
    “Well, ‘launched’ would
probably be a better word.”
    “Describe it to me.”
    “Describe what?”
    “Her body.  The crime
scene.”
    “Why?”
    “So I know you’re
telling me the truth.”
    “You know, I can’t say
I don’t find this lack of trust offensive.”
    “The crime scene,
Pendragon.  Now.”
    “Shit, okay.  I’m
outside, between our houses.  She’s on the ground…blue tank top.  Pink
boyshorts…white stripes, probably cotton.  Um, she’s barefoot.  Hair up in a
ponytail.”  Trust me when I say it hurt to mention that last part.  “And she’s
got a bullet wound in her chest.”
    His silence lasted so
long, I had to make sure he was still there.
    “Did you hear me?”
    “Yeah.  Anything else?”
    “About the body?  Or do
you mean, like, what I found inside?  She’d been eating french fries.”
    “You went in her
house?”
    “Was that bad?”
    “Are you nuts?  Wait,
don’t answer that.  Why?”
    “I wanted to
find—somebody murdered her!  I was trying to catch the guy.  And I almost had
him, too, but he knocked me out.”
    “Did you see him?  Can
you give a description?”
    “No.  I took a knock to
the temple and blacked out.”
    “And what were you
planning to do if you caught him?  Annoy him into handcuffs?”
    “Hey, that was uncalled
for.”
    “Stay right where you
are.  Do not move.  Do not touch anything.  Don’t touch her ,
don’t even make another footprint in the grass, and for the love of God, do
not, and I repeat, do not go back inside her house.  Are we clear?”
    “I should probably tell
you what I found, right?”
    “Save it for the
suits.  Give me your address.  I’m coming over.”
    As I gave him
directions, which included a brief aside about how he should take the route
that Mailman Jeffrey uses because that seems to be the most efficient way,
(beyond doubt,