Read Online Trip Wire by Charlotte Carter - Free Book Online

Boone had a sister still living with her folks. Mia confided in her, made her swear not to tell anybody. But after the murder, the kid spilled the whole story to the parents. The way they told it to Norris, this Zuni was wrecked when Mia left him. Nobody can understand how he could have turned around and lived in the same house with her, watching her carry on with another guy. That’d be enough to make any man crazy jealous. Don’t you think?”
    I went on staring at his mouth even after he stopped talking.
    “See what I mean, Cass? Either you want to help with the investigation or you don’t. Holding out on us is not gonna cut it.”
    “I didn’t know.”
    He pursed his lips.
    “Look, I told you. I didn’t know. But you know what? I’m not the one holding out here, trying to put something over on somebody. It’s you. You’re not helping me, you’re helping yourself. You’re acting like—”
    “I’m just acting like a cop. That’s all. So okay. We cleared the air on that. If you say you didn’t know, then you didn’t know.”
    Again he offered me the tray of sweet rolls, and again I said no. I was thinking about the one and only time I had been in Jack Klaus’s home—the evening when he had smuggled out the official police files on an old, unsolved murder to show Woody and me. Klaus was pushing Sara Lee pound cake at me all night. Like some kind of demonic old-maid aunt.
    Head down now, he thumbed through the papers inside the manila folder on his desktop. “At least you’re in the clear,” he said a minute later. “You spent the whole night with a Nathaniel Joffrey, I believe.”
    I said nothing.
    “Jim Norris tells me you’ve got a lip on you but you’re real smart, observant. I told him he was damn right.”
    “If Norris told me the sun was shining, I’d run out and buy a raincoat. Is that ox a friend of yours?”
    “He does his job. And you’ll probably be speaking to him again, so get used to it. You don’t have to like him.”
    “That’s a big load off my mind.”
    He bent over the papers again. “Alibis checked for Cliff Tobin and Beth Riegel. This fella Barry Mayhew can account for his whereabouts, too. But maybe he’s bought himself a different kind of trouble. He was at some kind of LSD orgy. What’s the story on him?”
    “Didn’t the police already get his story? They kept him at the station all that night, didn’t they?”
    “Yeah. But you live in the same apartment as the guy. I wanted your impression.”
    “I bet. Because I’m so smart and observant. You want me to snitch on Barry. Well, I’m not going to. Even if he is an asshole.”
    “Let’s go over it again, Cass. If you’re going to help with the investigation, you have to tell what you know.”
    “I’m not your snitch, man. I don’t care how much you’ve done for Woody.”
    He sighed, exasperated. “Hey, Cass? I’m over thirty and I’m a cop; I’m the man, so you don’t trust me for nothing. But take some advice, okay? Learn how to control that temper of yours.”
    “I’m going now.” I stood up.
    “Just a couple more—”
    “I don’t have to ask your permission to leave, right? I mean, you can’t make me stay?”
    “I can’t make you do anything.”
    “Fine. I’m going now.”
    He sighed.
    “By the way, Detective Klaus.”
    “You know better than that. Call me Jack.”
    “By the way, Detective Klaus. For future reference—it’s not cool for just any old honky to call a black person ‘brother.’ ”
    I watched him turn scarlet before I ripped the plastic visitor’s badge from my coat and stalked out.
    4
    Everywhere I turned there was a building connected to the municipal bureaucracy. The courthouse. The county jail. Maybe even the chamber of commerce. I couldn’t wait to get away from all that fascist architecture. The thing was, I didn’t have the most highly developed sense of direction and after fifteen minutes I realized I was walking in circles. Trying to navigate my way to