Cold Blood Read Free

photograph on the missing persons files.

    Eleven months passed, and with no new information, Anna Louise’s distraught parents faced the possibility that she might have been murdered. By this time, more than fifteen investigation agencies had been involved with the case; the Mississippi had been dragged and helicopters had searched the swamplands of Louisiana. Agnew Investigations, along with three other less well-known agencies, were still retained on the inquiry: the Caleys had paid out millions of dollars, but the expenditure had yielded no motive, no suspect, no results. All the grieving parents were left with was an aching period of waiting, while they longed for a sign that their beautiful Anna Louise was still alive.

    All the PI agencies involved had made a lot of money, and some had even traded information with one another, but finally the Anna Louise Caley bonanza was coming to an end. Pickings were getting slim for private investigators it was a tough business in which contacts and recommendations by word of mouth were a necessity, as Page Investigations, a small PI company, had found out the hard way. Even getting a foothold on the lowest rung of such a competitive ladder had proved impossible, and the attempt had been financially crippling for Lorraine Page: now, her agency was virtually bankrupt.

    Even though she was a former police lieutenant, her own case history as an alcoholic and an officer who had shot dead an unarmed boy while drunk on duty meant that instead of being welcomed into the PI fraternity, she was being frozen out, just as she had been kicked out of the LAPD. The hardest part was explaining to Rosie, the assistant whom Lorraine jokingly called her partner, and who was also a recovering alcoholic, that they were going under. Dear Rosie, who still hoped, Rosie who still maintained that business would pick upbut there had never been any business. There was nothing to pick up from; it had all been a gamble, a dream even, but now it was over.

    Lorraine had the phone cupped in her hand, half listening to the call, half wondering whether tonight would be the night she would tell Rosie she knew she would have to do it soon. She listened, interjecting twice how sorry she was as the man’s deep rumbling voice made incoherent references to his wife’s passing.

    Rosie Hurst, a plump forty-five-year-old woman with a kind, open face, was reading her horoscope, a cup of coffee and two orange-chocolate cupcakes beside her. She had flicked a glance at Lorraine when the phone had jangled through the silent office and sighed when she had heard Lorraine’s overcheerful
    “Hi, Bill, how ya doing?”
    Rosie had been trying a new diet: proteins one meal, carbohydrates the next, with fruit forty minutes either before or after each meal, and no fats or fried food. She had stuck to it for a month and felt better for having lost a few pounds, but today she was indulging in a binge of chocolate cupcakes, hating herself with each bite. Still, it was just one of those daysshe couldn’t face another chicken breast without crisp golden skin or French fries or another salad without dressing, and a whole month with no fresh crusty bread spread thickly with peanut butter had been excruciating.

    At last Lorraine was able to replace the receiver.
    “That was Bill Rooney,”
    she murmured, lighting a cigarette.
    “His wife died.”
    “I didn’t know he had a wife,”
    Rosie said, lowering her magazine.

    “I don’t think he did,”
    Lorraine said as she counted the butt ends in her ashtray. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. By turning her head a fraction she could just make out the cheap sign printed in fake gold leaf on the outer office doorPAGE INVESTIGATIONS AGENCY. There was a stack of business cards on her desk with the same inscription. It was a farce.

    “Well, th^*end of yet another overactive sleuthing day.”
    Rosie chomped on her cupcake, staring at the free digital alarm clock she got from