Read Online The Old Gray Wolf by James D. Doss - Free Book Online Page B

misleading. We trust that more shall be revealed as events unfold.
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    Despite the humiliating failure of her bladder’s sphincter muscle, Louella Smithson had neither left her post nor given up hope of identifying the sinister person who’d parked among the Methodist vehicles and then slipped away on foot in the direction of Francine Hooten’s sprawling house. He’s got to come back to his car sometime, and when he does I’ll be right here.
    You may embroider this motto onto your linen napkin:
    Patience and Persistence Pay
    And indeed, things were beginning to look brighter. About five minutes after Francine Hooten had completed her conversation with the hired killer, Miss Smithson spotted the shadowy figure again—this time advancing on a northerly course to the Logan County Picnic Grounds, where everyone was chowing down on succulent, slow-roasted pig flesh, delicious, deep-fried barnyard fowl, and a variety of tasty and indigestible side dishes that are far too numerous to enumerate. Was the amateur sleuth ecstatic? Yes indeed. This time I’ll get a good look at the rascal!
    Parked in the slowly graying shade atop Noffsinger Ridge, Louella Smithson had her binoculars carefully focused and, to minimize the inevitable jittering, her elbows resting steadily on the steering wheel. When the vehicle exited the picnic grounds and turned in the northerly direction whence it had originally come, she was treated to a glimpse of the profile of the person of interest. The most impressive feature was the driver’s cowboy hat—which attire was not all that unusual in southern Illinois. Unfortunately, the wide hat brim had—from Louella’s elevated vantage point—concealed the upper portion of the face from her view. The features she did get a glimpse of—a moderately strong chin, a determined mouth, and the tip of a pointy nose—had struck her as rather ordinary. Not exactly what you’d expect for a cold-blooded killer. But, having read about Baby Face Nelson and any number of other homicidal brutes who did not fit Hollywood’s notion of seriously bad guys, she was neither greatly surprised nor the least disappointed. As far as our make-believe detective was concerned … I just know it’s him! And, more hopeful still— I’ll know that nose and chin when I see him again . Stowing the binoculars in her pink purse, Miss Smithson started the V-8 engine and eased her blue-and-white 1989 Bronco slowly down the ridge in low gear before easing the old bucket of bolts onto the blacktop. All I’ve got to do now is stay way back so he won’t know that anyone’s tailing him.
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    Though the Bronco was almost a quarter mile behind the departing vehicle, the driver under the six-hundred-dollar, made-to-order cowboy hat spotted the big SUV right away. Its presence in the rearview mirror raised no immediate concern, but professional assassins who do not pay close attention to what is occurring in their immediate vicinity are not likely to survive long enough to see their first gray hairs sprouting—much less to retire to an idyllic beachside residence in Maui, Bali, or Key West.
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    Puttering along at a mere forty-five miles per hour, Louella Smithson realized that she was gradually closing on her suspect. He must’ve slowed down. The edgy PI eased off on the accelerator pedal until the Bronco’s speedometer needle jittered around the 40 mark. I hope he’s not onto me. Playing it safe, she pulled into a small service station—one of those nostalgia-provoking ma-and-pa operations with a seventy-year-old Coke sign rusting away in the window and a sturdy cane-back rocking chair on the front porch. There. I’ll give him time get out of sight, then get back on the road again. And she would.
    While Louella waits for a few heartbeats, there is breaking news to report