Read Online Knorath, Joe - Jack Daniels 03 - Rusty Nail by Konrath - Free Book Online

of jamming and misfiring. At any time, I could visually check how many rounds were left. And they were easier to clean.
    I threw away the two remaining bullets still in the cylinder, not knowing how the heat and the water from yesterday had affected them, and was loading six fresh rounds when I heard someone at my door.
    It wasn’t a knock. It was someone trying to turn the knob.
    I slapped the cylinder closed and walked silently up to my door, keeping to the right of the frame.
    The knob continued to turn, and I heard the jangle of keys.
    Latham? He had a key to my apartment. I disengaged the burglar alarm and almost turned the dead bolt and threw the door open, but thought better of it and checked the peephole first.
    Good thing I did. The woman outside my door was someone I’d never seen before. She looked to be in her late thirties, short brown hair, with a jagged scar reaching from her left eye to the corner of her mouth.
    I wondered how I should play it. Announce myself as a cop through the door? Ask who is it? Surprise her with a snub nose in her face?
    “Who’s there?” I said.
    My voice seemed to startle her. She backpedaled away from my door and walked quickly down the hall.
    I flipped back the dead bolt and swung the door open, my .38 locking on her back.
    “Stop! Police!”
    She turned and froze, her face going from white to whiter.
    “Hands in the air!”
    Her hands shot up. “I just moved in! I thought that was my apartment!”
    “Palms on the wall, feet apart.”
    The woman hugged the plaster like she knew the drill. She wore some kind of work overalls, brown and grubby, and the odor she gave off wasn’t pleasant.
    I did a quick but thorough pat down, and found a butterfly knife in her boot.
    “That’s for work.”
    “Where do you work?”
    “Department of Sanitation. The sewers.”
    “You need a martial arts weapon for sewer work?”
    “It’s under four fingers. It’s legal.”
    I opened the butterfly knife, and it had a short blade. Short but thick. Any blade longer than a handspan was against the law, and this one looked like it could go either way.
    “Why were you trying to break into my apartment?”
    “I told you, cop.” She said the word
cop
as if it hurt her. “I thought it was mine. It was an honest mistake. Quit hassling me.”
    I fished out a wallet, which wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do because she had gunk—presumably sewer gunk—on her pockets. Her driver’s license told me she was Lucy Walnut. Address in Oak Park.
    “Says here you’re in the suburbs.”
    “I just moved in last week. Haven’t got the license changed.”
    “Okay, Ms. Walnut. Let’s see if you’re telling the truth. Which door is yours?”
    “I’m in 304. The doors don’t have numbers on them.”
    Three-oh-four was right next to mine.
    “Keys. And stay put.”
    She handed over the keys and I kept a bead on her while trying the lock. It turned.
    “Told you so. Can I go now?”
    “Where’d you do time, Ms. Walnut?”
    She stayed quiet.
    “I can find out easy enough.”
    “Did a nickel at Joliet.”
    “What for?”
    Silence again.
    “I asked, what for?”
    “I don’t need to tell you nothing.”
    “No, you don’t. But if you’re on parole, I can find out who your PO is and explain how you were trying to break into a cop’s apartment.”
    “That was an accident.”
    “My word against yours. Who do you think the judge will believe? Now, what were you in for?”
    “Battery. I answered your damn questions. Can I go now?”
    I tossed her keys on the floor by her feet.
    “Keep your nose clean, Ms. Walnut. I’m going to hold on to your knife, because I wouldn’t want you hurting yourself with it.”
    “Whatever.”
    We both went into our respective abodes, and I took a big breath and let it out slow. My hands were quaking from adrenaline, just like they always did after I shook down a suspect.
    I set my gun on the counter, tossed the knife in the garbage, closed my eyes, and let my