Read Online The Hearse You Came in On by Tim Cockey - Free Book Online

his poker face. “Detective Zabriskie is the person who wants to see you. Take a left out the door here, end of the hall, last door on the right.”
    As I reached the door of his office, Kruk said, “Oh … and I’d like you to stick close to the city for the next several days.” I stopped and turned around. Kruk was fiddling with the papers. He looked up at me. I guess that thing he was doing with his mouth was a grin.
    Such a card. I left him to masticate on our interview and followed his directions to the office at the end of the hall. I stepped inside. For a moment I thought that it was empty. There was no one behind the desk. Suddenly the door was swinging closed behind me. I turned to see a familiar pair of hazel eyes and a small mouth, all linked up to a nice long pair of legs.
    “Mr. Sewell. I’m Detective Kate Zabriskie. It’s nice to see you again.”
    Lady X motioned for me to take a seat.
    “I think we need to talk.”

CHAPTER 8
     
    D etective Kate Zabriskie stared at me as she spoke on the phone. It had buzzed the moment I took a seat. Her end of the conversation was minimal and terse. Mainly she bobbed her head. “No … uh-huh … right.” All the time she held me in the tractor beam of her eyes, as if I might flee the moment she glanced away.
    Fat chance.
    The conversation ended and she put the phone back down on the cradle.
    “How are you, Mr. Sewell?” she asked.
    “Oh, let’s see, I’m fine. You?”
    She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I guess that depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On you.”
    The great and powerful me. I leaned forward and rested my arms on Detective Zabriskie’s desk. I motioned the woman forward as if I had a secret I was sharing and didn’t want anyone else to overhear. She leaned in. I hissed.
    “What the
fuck
is going on here?”
    It startled her. But she recovered instantly. “Fairquestion. Let me see if I can answer you.” She leaned back in her chair again and took a moment to sort her thoughts. “For starters, I’m not Carolyn James. I gather you picked up on that.”
    “A little dead bird told me.”
    “I’m very sorry about that. That was stupid of me. It was reckless. I was… a little rattled that day.”
    “Impersonating a soon-to-be suicide can shake a person up. Or at least so I’m told. I’ve never done it.”
    “You’re angry with me.”
    Well where should we deliver the new car, Johnny? “Yeah, I think you could say I’m a little out of sorts, Miss—” I double-checked the nameplate on her desk. “Miss Zabriskie. Or if I turn this around will it say something else?”
    “No. That’s it. Kate Zabriskie. I’ll show you my driver’s license if you’d like.”
    “I’ll believe you,” I said. “Again.”
    She made a tent of her fingers and brought it to her lips. She was staring hard again. Right through me. More accurately, she was staring at me the way a person does at a half-finished puzzle. It was disconcerting, to say the least.
    “Would you mind not staring at me that way?” I asked.
    She blinked, snapping out of it. “I’m sorry. I was … I was just thinking.”
    “Well how about just talking? I mean, I hate to say that I think you owe me an explanation, but etc., etc., you owe me an explanation.”
    “You’re right. I do.”
    “So what’s this all about? Why did you tell me that you were Carolyn James? Why did you ask aboutfuneral arrangements? How did you know that she was going to kill herself? What exactly is—”
    I cut myself off. I’ve heard that intelligence can be measured by the time required for synaptic sparks to flare between two seemingly random thoughts. I suddenly felt very synaptically challenged.
    “Carolyn James didn’t kill herself,” I said. “Did she?”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because you
knew
she was going to be dead. Unless you run a damned good psychic hotline in your spare time the only way you could know something like that is by knowing that she was going