Read Online Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay by Reed Farrel Coleman - Free Book Online

wrong?”
    â€œDon’t think so. Nothing missing. No forced entry.”
    â€œProfessional hit?”
    Healy shook his head. “We’re talking an eighty-two-year-old woman and her shih tzu, Rags.”
    â€œThe cabdriver, then?”
    â€œNo way the killer could have known who’d be picking him up. And it’s Salem, Mass, for crissakes! If the killer wanted to rob a cabbie to make some money, he should’ve gone to Boston. None of it makes any kind of sense. Especially the murder weapon. Looks like a .22. And this guy could shoot. The old lady got one to the head, one in the pump. Driver got two in the head. Forensics guy thinks one of the shots was through the windshield. Glass fragments on the body.” Healy made a pistol of his right thumb and forefinger and shot it. “The second bullet through the back of the head. Contact wound. Guy even got the dog in the noggin. Like I said, it makes no sense.”
    â€œSometimes things don’t.”
    Healy stood. “Good point. You might want to remember that when you read through Fish’s case file. Now I got to get back to the office.”
    â€œHow was the golf lesson?”
    â€œInstructor says I’m a natural.”
    â€œYou think he’s said that to a new student once or twice before?”
    Healy laughed. “Maybe once or twice.”
    When Healy left, Jesse flipped open the file on Gino Fish’s murder-suicide, but he couldn’t concentrate. The murders in Salem were gnawing at him, only he couldn’t put his finger on why.

SIXTEEN
    J esse made a face, and not a happy one, as he drove past the
For Sale
sign at the edge of his property. For the most part he had enjoyed living on the outskirts of town. The quiet, the water views, the woods were all good for his head, but the isolation was getting to him. Even a man like him, a man apart, can have too much of a good thing. And he supposed that he was partially motivated by his relationship with Diana. There was no way she would ever be happy living out in the woods, listening to the grass grow and having cicadas sing her lullabies, though he doubted there was any place in Paradise that could hold her attention. Good thing he could. The plan was for him to begin shopping for a condo when someone put a serious bid on his house. As yet it had been slow going. There had been a few nibbles, but mostly lowball bids to see if he would bite.
    This part of the day had become his toughest hurdle in his effort to give up alcohol for good. The part of the day he used to look forward to more than any other. When he’d get home from work and fix himself a tall Johnnie Walker Black Label with soda, stir it with his index finger, and lick his finger like a kid with Mom’s chocolate cake batter. Then he’d sit in his recliner and discuss his day withOzzie Smith. It was easier on the weekends with Diana in town to focus on, to come home to. The lack of action on the house sale didn’t make this part of the day any easier. Still, he went through the ritual, using club soda and lime. Only today he plopped down in his recliner and opened the file Healy had given him from the Boston PD. He’d already gone over it once at the station. He hoped a second look, away from work, might help him find something new.
    But Healy had been right; Jesse wasn’t happy with what was in the file, not earlier and not now. So far everything confirmed the original theory in the case. Although the DNA results weren’t back yet and wouldn’t be for several weeks, the initial blood-type results showed only two contributors, both consistent with each victim’s blood type. The only fingerprints on the knife belonged to Gino Fish. The blood on the knife was consistent with the receptionist’s blood type. The autopsy showed that the knife wounds matched the knife found on the scene. The fingerprints on the .38 belonged to Gino Fish and no less a source than Vinnie