Read Online Stripped by Brian Freeman - Free Book Online Page B

did.”
    “You’re crazy,” Busby murmured. He turned to Serena. “He’s crazy. I didn’t do that. No way.”
    “You want to tell us how your car got stolen?” Serena asked coolly.
    “I parked in the Fremont Street lot downtown last Friday. When I came back, it was gone. I called it in. That’s what happened.”
    “This was about eight thirty in the evening?”
    “Guess so,” Busby replied. “Sounds about right.”
    “And what were you doing downtown?” Serena asked. “Playing the slots?”
    “I wasn’t playing, I was working,” Busby said. “Like I told you, I cook sausage and eggs at the Lady Luck.”
    “When did you get to work?” Serena asked. She didn’t like where this was going.
    “Around noon, like always.”
    “You mean you parked the car in the Fremont ramp before noon?” she repeated, just to be sure.
    “ ’Course. That’s what I do every day. That’s what I’m saying.”
    Serena closed her eyes, feeling sick again. This time it was because she knew they were wrong. He had an alibi. She thought about Cordy teasing the man about his gut and then remembered, too, the tight fit as she slid into the Aztek to search. Wrong, wrong.
    “Anybody work with you?” Serena asked. She knew she was wasting her breath. He wasn’t the one.
    “Well, yeah, you’ve got a bunch of other cooks and waitresses in and out all day.”
    “Did you take any breaks? How about a lunch break in the afternoon?” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.
    “No, I don’t take a lunch break. I work straight through.”
    Serena couldn’t help smiling. She eyed the man’s whalelike physique. “Come on, Mr. Busby. No lunch break? You?”
    Busby smiled for the first time, too. “The fact is, I’m trying to cut back. And, well, I guess I do have a little snack from time to time on the job.”
    Serena sighed. “So tell us what happened to your car.”
    “Not much to tell. I left work at the usual time, went back to the lot. No car. I always park in the same spot, so it’s not like I could have lost it. It just wasn’t there.”
    “Any relatives have keys to your car?”
    “I don’t have much in the way of relatives,” Busby said. “Mama’s dead, Daddy’s in the nursing home. Nobody wanted to marry me looking like this.”
    Serena nodded. She felt like shit now, putting this poor man through the ringer. A sad, lonely life, and all she could do was sprinkle in a litde more pain and fear. Then she was going to have to tell him that he couldn’t have his car back tonight
    She gestured to Cordy, and the two of them huddled. Cordy popped a piece of gum into his mouth and began chewing loudly. “He didn’t do it, did he?”
    “Nope.”
    “So what does that mean?” Cordy asked.
    Serena stopped and thought about it The more she did, the less she liked the implications of what they had found. It didn’t feel like an accident anymore. It felt like something much worse.
    “Somebody steals a car downtown and then just happens to get into a vicious hit-and-run in a suburb the same afternoon?”
    “He killed the kid deliberately,” Cordy concluded.
    “It sure feels that way.”
    Serena remembered the receipt for the Krispy Kreme doughnuts. She returned to the patrol car, where Busby was waiting, and leaned inside.
    “Did you go to Reno last month, Mr. Busby?”
    Busby frowned. “No, I’ve never been to Reno. Not ever.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Stride waited in Lieutenant Sawhill’s office, swirling coffee in his mug and staring down through the third-floor window at a black cat slinking across the street outside and disappearing into a garbage-strewn backyard. Not long after, a policeman sped by on a mountain bike that looked several sizes too small. His ass hung over the seat, and his knees were almost at his chin. The cat and the cop, both patrolling for rats.
    The Homicide Detail was housed in the Downtown Command, Metro’s flagship building, modern and beige, its entrance lined with