Read Online The Perfect Crime by Les Edgerton - Free Book Online Page B

them twice and only when he and a former bed partner found themselves next to each other on bar stools. It was a hell of a way to live, he’d thought more than once, but he didn’t do much to change it.
    Booze was a way to keep from thinking how much he missed police work. Funny--the drunker he got, the more it cropped up in his thoughts. He shook his head the way a dog would in ridding itself of water after a dunking, and forced his mind to go blank.
    He’d let himself in Jack’s store with his own key and was waiting for Marty to show up. It was the start of the detective’s weekend, but he’d only balked a little at Grady’s request.
    “Well, I don’t know, Grady,” he’d said into the phone. “It’s my day off.” After a little silence, Marty said, “What the fuck. My wife is driving me nuts anyway. Give me an excuse to get out for a while. She’s got a bunch of women over for some kind of sex toys party and I can’t hear the ball game for their giggling. If I don’t get out, they’re going to be asking me to come model some of their shit. Give me half an hour. I gotta make a stop and pick up some butts.”
    Grady walked through the debris that was strewn everywhere. He consciously avoided looking at the spot where he’d found his brother, but it was hard to miss. The rest of the store looked as though the proverbial tornado had blasted through from door to door. At first, he assumed the perp had been looking for stuff to hock, but the longer he looked at the pattern of parts and accessories lying about on the floor, the more he suspected the mess was too methodical. The way the shelves were tipped over, Grady suspected the crime was designed to look like simple vandalism.
    The more I look at this, Grady decided, the more it stinks. At first he’d figured it was kids maybe or your basic armed robbery gone hinky, but none of the evidence seemed to hold up for that being the case. Yeah, on the surface it did, but not when you started looking at things closer. Things like the shelves that were tipped over. It wasn’t done randomly, for one thing. Every single one of them was pitched forward at the same angle. He bet there was no prints on any of them, either.
    The front door opened and Marty came walking in.
    “Your brother has quite a place,” he said. “Not exactly a Radio Shack.”
    They shook hands. “I appreciate your time, Marty,” Grady said. “No, Jack’s got a pretty special store. He doesn’t get things from your usual sources. Most of his customers are serious hobbyists, into more sophisticated stuff than your weekend model airplane buff. I help him out quite a bit. He has some government clients. He’s got stuff the CIA could use.” He paused. “And does.”
    “Not your strip center mom-and-pop operation, eh?” Marty grinned.
    “Not at all.” Grady replied, a slight smile appearing on his face.
    “How’s your--” Marty hesitated.
    “Eye?” Grady finished it for him. “It’s fine. Messed up my golf game some, but I manage. My depth perception is a bit off at long distances. Under a hundred yards, it’s fine.”
    “I didn’t know you were a golfer.”
    “I’m not. That was supposed to be a joke.”
    Marty reached down and picked up one of the parts lying on the floor, looked at it a second, then put it back.
    “We were all sorry you retired, Grady. You were one of the best.”
    There was a short silence in which Grady could think of nothing to say. He turned his face away from the other cop, self-consciously. Marty cleared his throat after a moment and said, “Well, hey, anyway... Listen, you know if any of those militia types ever come in? You know, survivalists, doomsdayers, folks like that?”
    “Fruitcakes, you mean?” Grady thought a minute. “Well...a few, I guess. Jack was pretty careful, though.” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Oh--I see where you’re going. You think maybe one of those kooks...”
    “I don’t think a goddamn thing at this point. Oh,