Read Online Murder Mountain by Stacy Dittrich - Free Book Online Page B

the day, but now he looked completely haggard, as if many years of hitting the bottle had finally taken their toll.
    “Please, have a seat, detective,” he said softly, gesturing vaguely at the room’s furniture.
    I chose a comfy-looking sofa by the window. He sat in a straight-backed wooden chair. I figured it was probably because it was good for his back.
    I started things off by telling him how I was assigned to the case by Captain Kincaid, what I had been doing on it, what I had found so far, and why I was there to see him. Then I asked him, “Where have your tips about this come from? You know; the ones that you told the commissioner about? In other words, how did you hear that Lizzie was dead?”
    Larry ran the long, skinny fingers of one hand through his thinning hair. “Well,” he began at last, “there’s this woman that lives down the street, at the corner of Benedict Avenue and Hanna Avenue. Anyway, her name’s Andrea Dean and she’s the gossip of Little Kentucky.” He twisted his mouth up over to one side for a moment before he went on. “Well, anyway, after Lizzie’d been gone for two days, I ran into Andrea at the gas station up the road and, y’know, asked her if she’d seen Lizzie lately. I told her I hadn’t heard from her for a couple of days.”
    He ran his hand along his skull again before continuing. “Now, I’ll tell ya, once I asked her that, her face, she got a look of terror on it. That’s what it was: a look of terror. And before I was even finished askin’ her about it she started shakin’ her head and sayin’, ‘No. Uh-uh. Sorry. Not a thing. No.’ Stuff like that.”
    He looked out a window for a moment, then back at me. His voice remained soft, but it had taken on a slight unsteadiness. “What really bothered me was that she shook her head no before I’d even finished asking the question, y’know? That and her looking scared to death. I could tell she wasn’t telling the truth, and, well, I got scared. I mean, I begged her to tell me anything she knew. I told her I knew she had to know
something
.”
    He closed his eyes and breathed deeply in and out a few times, composing himself, then said, his voice quivering slightly, “It took, like, several minutes of me not lettin’ it go before she finally told me what she’d heard around town. She told me she’d heard that Lizzie had gotten herself wrapped up with some really bad guys around here. Andrea said she didn’t know who. Then she told me that she’d heard that Lizzie’d really pissed them off somehow. She said she didn’t hear directly that Lizzie was dead, but that these bad guys take care of business when they get it in for somebody.” He ground a knuckle into the corner of one eye, probably to stop from crying.
    Taking care of business
means people just disappear.
    “Then she clammed up and wouldn’t tell me jack shit more. That’s it.”
    It was after this, Larry said, that he’d called Commissioner Phillips, with whom he’s been friends since they were small boys, to ask him for help in finding his daughter.
    It was clear, sitting there watching and listening to Larry talk, that the last several weeks had taken their toll on him. He seemed like an emotional wreck and looked as if he hadn’t eaten, slept, or showered in several days. I asked him if Lizzie’d stayed here most of the time, and if she had her own bedroom.
    He slowly nodded, pointed to the hall, and said, “It’s the last door on the left. Look around all you want. I haven’t been in there in a couple of weeks.” Looking away, he added, “It upsets me too much.”
    “I understand, I won’t mess anything up or touch anything. I just want to look around,” I said as reassuringly as I could.
    When I walked into Lizzie’s room, it certainly was not what I had expected. Her room was very neat, very pink, with pictures and posters on the wall and stuffed animals on the bed. It looked like a stereotypical high-school cheerleader’s