Read Online Recoil by Brian Garfield - Free Book Online

might have, but as soon as he was released on bail he was killed. Shot to death on his own doorstep.”
    Ronny drew air through his teeth. “Cripes.”
    Jan said, “It’s not a TV movie we’re talking about, Ronny. These are real people. It’s real blood and real pain …”
    Ronny scowled at Mathieson. “They killed this judge to keep him from talking, right?”
    â€œYes. That’s why sometimes it’s so hard to get evidence against them—they make people afraid to testify.”
    â€œBut they didn’t scare you, did they.”
    â€œThey scared me.”
    Jan said, “Your father stood up and testified to the truth in open court. A lot of people told him he was crazy.”
    At the time, he was thinking, it seemed the right thing to do.
    Ronny said, “How come they didn’t arrest Pastor for killing the judge, then?”
    â€œNobody could prove he’d ordered it done.”
    They talked on. It was hard to explain to the boy; he’d grown up on adventure shows that always wrapped the villains up neatly in the fourth quarter-hour.
    There was a discreet knock at the door—three raps, an interval, three more. Mathieson admitted Glenn Bradleigh. There were two men with him, lugging suitcases. They set the cases down and left without a word. Mathieson said, “It’s still cold in here. You can leave the door open.”
    Bradleigh crossed to the door. “No, we don’t want to talk to the world.” He shut it and locked it.
    â€œTalk about what?”
    Bradleigh tossed a large bulky manila envelope on the bed. “Morning, Jan. Ronny. You folks are looking a lot healthier today. Had breakfast?”
    â€œMr. Caruso brought it on a tray for us.”
    â€œCaruso’s a treasure.” Bradleigh was snapping the latches of the suitcases. “We rescued as much of your clothes as we could from the house. One of the boys ran it through one of the dry cleaners yesterday. Had a lot of plaster dust but I think you’ll find most of them pretty clean now.”
    Jan got up and rummaged through the suitcases. She beamed at Bradleigh. “We didn’t expect to see any of these again. Thanks so much …”
    Bradleigh looked away. “Don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me again for anything, all right?”
    â€œGlenn, it wasn’t your fault.”
    Bradleigh wouldn’t look at any of them. “We dug quite a bit of other stuff out of the house. Odds and ends, you’ll want to sort through it—we’ve taken it to the FBI office downtown, you can claim the stuff later. Amazing the kind of things we found intact. A balsa-wood model airplane, believe it or not.”
    She smiled; a sidewise glance at Ronny. “He put that away in the closet last November. He’d probably forgotten he ever had it.”
    â€œI did not.”
    Mathieson was looking at the manila envelope on the bed. “Who are we?”
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Jason W. Greene.” Bradleigh emptied the envelope’s contents onto the rumpled bed: documents of various shades and sizes. “Best we could do on short notice—we’d been putting these together for another family but they can wait. I’m afraid it’ll make you both out to be older than you are but it’s the closest we could do. The birth certificate on the boy is a flat-out forgery but we’re slipping a copy of it into the Binghamton hall of records if anybody ever checks back that far.”
    â€œBinghamton?”
    â€œRight. Because you spent some summers there, didn’t you?”
    â€œLong time ago. With my uncle and aunt.”
    â€œThen you knew the town a little, at least. We couldn’t give you a background you knew nothing about at all. Jason W. Greene. Margaret Johnson Greene. Don’t forget it.”
    â€œWhat do I do for a living?”
    â€œYour wife used to be a librarian. You were an investment