Read Online Sacrificial Ground by Thomas H. Cook - Free Book Online Page B

it?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSome special expertise, something like that?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAny reason I could give for keeping you on it? I mean one that would hold up on the top floor?”
    â€œNothing. Just a feeling.”
    Brickman stared at him quietly. “You know Harry Gibbons?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWould you say he’s the best detective in Homicide?”
    â€œYeah, I guess he is.”
    â€œTakes these special goddamn courses all the time, right? Goes to night school? A real top-gun?”
    â€œThat’s what they say.”
    â€œJust like the Mounties, always gets his man.”
    Frank nodded.
    â€œWell, Gibbons wants this case, too, Frank,” Brickman said. “Now what would you do in my situation? Think about it. You’ve slouched around here, pissing away month after month.” He stopped. “And by the way, what the fuck happened to your face?”
    Frank said nothing.
    â€œRan into a swinging door?” Brickman asked dryly.
    â€œPersonal business,” Frank said. “It has nothing to do with my work.”
    â€œUh huh,” Brickman said unbelievingly. “Anyway, if you had a case you needed to break, wouldn’t you hand it to Gibbons?”
    â€œProbably,” Frank admitted.
    â€œSo why shouldn’t I?”
    â€œBecause in his heart,” Frank said, “Gibbons doesn’t give a damn about anything.”
    â€œThat don’t mean a goddamn thing to me, Frank,” Brickman said.
    Frank looked steadily into Brickman’s eyes. “Years back, Asa, if some peckerwood mayor had told Gibbons to go waste some big-mouthed, agitating nigger, what do you think he’d have done?”
    Brickman’s face softened slightly, and a slow smile stretched across his lips. “All right, Frank,” he said, after a moment, “I’ll let you hold on to it for a while. But I don’t want you on it alone.”
    â€œI won’t work with Gibbons,” Frank said flatly.
    â€œHow about Alvin?”
    Frank shook his head. “Caleb Stone.”
    â€œThat old fart?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Brick laughed lightly. “That old bastard have a feeling for this case, too?”
    Frank shrugged. “I can work with him, that’s all.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll put Caleb on it. You want to tell him, or you want me to?”
    â€œI will.”
    â€œYou working anything else?”
    â€œThat guy who killed his wife over on Highland.”
    â€œThat’s pretty open and shut, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMind if I throw it to Gibbons?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay, done,” Brickman said. “You just work this one, nothing else. But don’t fuck it up, Frank. You won’t get another chance.” He turned quickly and walked back out of the room.
    Frank returned to the lab report and began to scan its findings once again. Slowly, his mind shifted from Angelica to her sister, and he remembered the forceful way in which she had managed to control herself. He wondered if Angelica had shared that characteristic, if she had been able to sit in a chair and calmly inject her own body with poison seven times. It seemed beyond anyone’s capacity, no matter what the lab report said. The method was too protracted, the results, as he imagined them, too unendurably painful. He had seen his share of deaths: crudely slashed wrists deep in bloody water, faces blown away by shotgun blasts, bodies slumped limply to the side, the smell of gas still rising from their clothes. The reasons were almost always the same, a loneliness and isolation so complete that it closed them off from the rest of the world, locked them in a dark drawer from which they could not even imagine an escape.
    He tried to picture Angelica with the hypodermic needle in her hand, but found he could not. He saw her picture in the yearbook and her body sprawled on the ground, but could imagine nothing