Chasing Ghosts Read Free Page A

moved to the one
by the desk.
    He stopped himself from shooting another
glare her way and instead unzipped the compartments in a laptop
case resting against the leg of the desk. In one of the pockets was
a ticket. “Open return in Demko’s name. Flew from Minneapolis to
Chicago. Probably took a cab or shuttle from the airport. I don’t
see a rental car receipt.” He fumbled through the rest of the
compartments but didn’t find any car keys or papers. A laptop
computer sat on the desk but Dagger didn’t want to open it here.
Instead he shoved the laptop into the case and zipped the bag
closed.
    Dagger tossed the bag on the coffee table,
then sat down and searched the desk. Stationery and pens were in
the top drawer. A phone book lay open on the desk. Dagger fanned
through the pages. One of the pages was folded toward the inside in
the P section of the yellow pages. “Maybe he was ordering pizza.”
Dagger unfolded the page which listed private investigators.
Scribbled in the margin was Dagger’s name.

    “ Is anyone coming? I hear someone
coming.” Skizzy Borden slammed the tailgate of the truck and
scanned the forest with eyes that appeared tethered loosely to his
head. Just sixty-eight inches of bone and skin, but Dagger had
often said his looks were deceiving. Skizzy was far more deadly
than he appeared.
    “ Ain’t nobody coming. Now let’s get him
the hell out of there.” Simon reopened the tailgate of Skizzy’s
truck. The burly mailman was also far more deadly than he looked.
His wife claimed it was his cherub face and twinkling eyes that
made him appear more like a black Santa than the Special Ops
sharpshooter he was in Nam. He tugged at the blanket-rolled body of
Paul Demko and dragged it to the edge of the truck bed. “Grab the
other end.”
    They hefted the rolled blanket off the truck
and half dragged, half carried the body through bushes and weeds.
The gravel road they had driven on was overgrown with goldenrod and
other hayfever-producing plants. The limestone quarry was on the
outskirts of town. A half mile wide and a mile long, the quarry had
supplied limestone rock and aggregate for a construction company
since 1912. It was closed five years ago. What better place to dump
a body than in a four hundred foot deep quarry. Once Demko was
unrolled from the carpet, the two men stood over him like preachers
paying their last respects.
    “ Sure don’t look like a killer,” Skizzy
said. His wiry gray hair was wrestling itself free from the rubber
band. As though on reconnaissance, Skizzy had dressed in camouflage
pants and shirt. His eyes scanned the area looking for witnesses,
although everyone who knew Skizzy believed he looked for government
spies around every bend.
    “ Let’s get a move on.” Simon bent down
to grab Demko’s ankles.
    “ How’s come I always get the heavy
part?” Skizzy mumbled. He crouched down to grab the
shoulders.
    “ Guy weighs less than my wife,” Simon
said.
    “ You saw that videotape Dagger had. You
see how that guy jumped over the fence? That’s why I took his
jacket.” Skizzy had found something unusual about the fabric of
Demko’s jacket. Although Dagger remained skeptical, Skizzy told him
the government was experimenting with a type of synthetic muscle
sewn into fabric that adds strength and agility to the wearer.
Dagger had told him he was nuts but Skizzy had hacked into enough
government project files to know what he was talking about. Skizzy
had zoomed in on Demko during his acrobatics and his suit had
suddenly puffed up, resembling the Michelin Man. It had deflated
just as quickly after he had landed on the ground.
    “ Hey.” Skizzy leaned closer to the
body. “Do you hear some ticking? Check for a watch. He might have
an expensive Rolex I could sell in the pawn shop.”
    “ Rolex watches don’t tick.” Simon
pulled the shirt cuff back from Demko’s wrist. Demko wasn’t wearing
a watch. He checked the other wrist. “Maybe he has a pocket