Read Online Silencing Sam by Julie Kramer - Free Book Online Page B

they’re not all that difficult. Ingredients are easy to come by. Detonation is as simple as making a phone call.”
    I filled him in on the tension between the sheriff and the FBI guy. Nothing new to him. Feds and locals often clash on the direction of investigations.
    â€œOne thing that sticks out,” he said, “is that nobody’s been hurt. It’s almost like your bomber is taking pains not to harm actual people. That’s unusual in committed terror circles. Normally you’d see a body count.”
    Since I knew some of the folks living within the wind farm acreage, that appeared to be a good thing. I’d have hated to see any of them as either victims or perpetrators. Like the rest of the rural neighbors down there, I was betting on an outsider. ButGarnett’s observation of only property damage supported the theory that a peeved local might be behind it all.
    â€œCan you see what you can find out?” I asked.
    â€œNo promises,” he said. Which was better than a firm no. Since our relationship had turned personal, there was less exchanging of professional information. Maybe it was because he had a new job. Or maybe it was because any scoop I broke might reflect back on him.
    So I changed the subject back to his favorite topic. Murder. He had once been a top homicide investigator, and this seemed a good time to get his take on the headless body.
    â€œDo you think they’ll ever find her head?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “No way of knowing. Sometimes killers dump a body in one state and a head in another. If both are discovered, the different jurisdictions slow down any investigation.”
    â€œQuite a road trip,” I said. “Driving a human head across state lines.” Not the kind of cargo anyone would want to get caught hauling. “I guess the murderer got lucky that no one noticed anything that night in the park.”
    â€œNo surprise,” Garnett said. “The body was dumped on a Sunday night. That’s the dog watch. When the fewest number of cops are on patrol. If I was going to dump a body, that’s when I’d do it.”
    Dog watch. Cop talk. I love it.
    Amid tangled sheets, Garnett slept.
    My mind kept returning to Sam. As a journalist, I pondered questions like how much he bled and whether the bullets hurt for long.
    Even though I hadn’t liked him as a person, I didn’t like being haunted by thoughts of him lying dead. Probably because, if I was being honest, I knew that in the mind of the general public, not much separated my work from his. So it wasn’t outlandishto visualize an angry viewer coming after me for something I reported. Telling myself that Sam deserved death more would be of little consolation if I joined him on a morgue slab.
    To keep my mind off such unpleasantness, I forced myself to concentrate on the headless homicide. That was an even worse mistake. Now I couldn’t shake the sight and smell of crime-scene gore. The blood from the victim’s head must have sprayed the killer and his surroundings like a brand of death. That image made the bloody elevator in the movie
The Shining
seem tame. And when I closed my eyes, instead of the black comfort of darkness, I saw the color red.

CHAPTER 12
    I must have slept because I woke with a start. Afraid. I might have made a strangled cry, but I wasn’t sure. It took a few seconds for me to realize I was safe. In bed. A man by my side. A man who loved me. And whom I loved back.
    â€œAre you okay? Riley?” By then Garnett had reached for a lamp switch.
    Light brought reassurance that the warmth I felt came from blankets, not blood.
    My nightmare stemmed from a childhood memory I hadn’t thought about for decades: the day the chickens got butchered. We kids were supposed to take turns holding the comb of the bird’s head across a wooden stump while my mother held the feet. I remember the chicken’s eye blinking as its neck