The Sixth Idea

Read Online The Sixth Idea by P. J. Tracy - Free Book Online Page A

Book: The Sixth Idea by P. J. Tracy Read Free Book Online
Authors: P. J. Tracy
Ads: Link
He was such a nice man, so excited to be in town visiting a new friend.”
    Gino cocked an eyebrow at Magozzi. “Wallace Luntz?”
    She looked up. “Yes, he said his friend’s name was Wally. Does he know Chuck is . . . ?”
    Gino winced, then explained the explosion, the 911 call from Spencer, and the fact that Wally Luntz had been shot by his intruder before his house had gone up like a rocket. That threw pretty Lydia for another, more significant loop—her face blanched and her eyes fixed on a distant point, like she was looking for answers to some confounding, internal mystery.
    â€œWally was murdered too?” she whispered.
    â€œIt looks that way.”
    â€œOh my God. This is horrible. I don’t know what to say.”
    â€œWe’re hoping you can help us fill in some blanks,” Magozzi prompted. “Do you know why Mr. Spencer was in town to visit Wallace Luntz?”
    â€œAll I can tell you is what Chuck told me.”
    After twenty minutes, Magozzi was beginning to think that Lydia Ascher was a beautiful distraction, but a dead end in the pertinent information department.
    The whole hydrogen bomb thing was interesting—fascinating, actually—but she’d said it herself—it was old news, declassified in the eighties. Certainly nothing that would put a bull’s-eye on a couple of second-generation men who were whiling away their retirement researching family footnotes to the Cold War fifty-plus years after the fact. And that was the extent of her knowledge about Spencer. If he and Wally had been laundering money for the mob or running drugs for a Mexican cartel, he hadn’t shared that with his seatmate from L.A. to Minneapolis.
    Magozzi flipped to a new page in his notebook. “You mentioned that Mr. Spencer was trying to get in touch with other descendants. Did he?”
    Lydia folded her lips together, and her brows tipped down. “He told me Wally and some others had reached out to him through his website. It’s called the Sixth Idea dot net. He showed a little of it to me on his laptop after we got off the plane.”
    Magozzi made a note of the site’s name and thought about the notable absence of any electronics on Spencer, in his hotel room, or in his rental car. “So he did have a laptop computer with him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThank you. I think we’re just about finished here, Ms. Ascher. You’ve been very gracious with your time, we appreciate it.”
    â€œI’m sorry I haven’t been much help. And I’m very sorry for what happened. I hope you’ll find whoever is responsible.”
    Magozzi gave her a card. “If you think of anything else, please call.”
    â€œI will.” She stood and began to slip on her coat. Gino was quick to help her, because a happily married man had chivalry down to anart form. Magozzi would have gotten there maybe half a second later. He should have been a half a second earlier.
    She shook their hands, then paused. “You know, there’s one thing I didn’t mention. It’s probably silly.”
    â€œNothing is silly, every detail can be a crucial one,” Magozzi reassured her, having trouble keeping his eyes off hers.
Good interview technique,
he thought. Yeah, right.
    â€œChuck and I had a cup of coffee after we got off the plane. There was a man in the café who just . . . well, he made me nervous.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œJust a feeling. You know how sometimes people watch you, but they’re pretending not to?”
    Magozzi knew very well, because that’s exactly what he was doing with Lydia Ascher, and probably what the man in the café had been doing, too. It was hard not to stare at a looker like her. “Yes. So you think he was watching you.”
    Her forehead crinkled. “Actually, it seemed more like he was watching Chuck. In quick glances, you know?”
    â€œWhat

Similar Books

Promise of Blood

Brian McClellan

The Remake

Stephen Humphrey Bogart

Protector

Tressa Messenger

Edward Lee

Room 415

The Walk-In

Mimi Strong

Finders Keepers Mystery

Gertrude Chandler Warner

Helen Keller in Love

Kristin Cashore

LoveStar

Andri Snaer Magnason

Born to Rule

Kathryn Lasky