Dead Fall Read Free Page B

vice—too much caffeine—keeps my mind off nicotine most of the time. I’ll take a coffee if you’ve one on the go.”
    She shook her head apologetically. “I send out to Starbucks when I need a kick start,” she said. Placing the Marlboro between her lips she paused once more. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
    â€œGo for it. This is your place, after all.”
    Sheridan laughed to herself as she struck a match. She spoke around the cigarette as she puffed to get it going. “You’re very accommodating, Joe. Some of the johns we get in here are happy to snort coke, or to smoke crack, but pull out a Marlboro in front of them and they get all holier than thou.”
    â€œHypocrites,” I said.
    â€œIsn’t it a little hypocritical of you giving up smoking when you chance injury or death all the time? I mean the odds of cancer finding your lungs before a bullet does are kind of slim.”
    â€œI wasn’t aware that my activities are such common knowledge,” I said.
    â€œJoe, you’ve taken down more mobsters than Eliot Ness. Everyone on the streets knows that. So do the cops, for that matter. What we don’t know is how you keep getting away with it.”
    â€œFunny isn’t it? I was just wondering the same about Mick O’Neill.”
    She went quiet, concentrating on her cigarette. I knew she was thinking hard on how much she could trust me to keep my mouth shut.
    â€œO’Neill was responsible for murdering William Murray; I think he was also behind Candice’s murder. But I need validation, Sheridan.” I waited, hoping my words were enough to prompt her. But she surprised me yet again. She hopped off her desk and walked back and forth, one arm across her chest, the other hand holding her cigarette an inch from her mouth. Then coming to a conclusion, she nodded at the door.
    â€œI think it’s best that you leave, Joe.”
    â€œA minute longer, that’s all I need.”
    â€œThere’s nothing I can tell you.”
    She was afraid and it was understandable. She didn’t want to end up in an alleyway with a slug in the back of her head the way Candice had.
    â€œSo don’t say a thing, other than tell me if I’m on the wrong track, and then I’ll be out of here. No one will hear your name from me, OK?”
    She halted in her pacing. Her chest rose and fell a few times before she resigned herself and sat back against the desk.
    â€œCandice saw or heard something she wasn’t meant to. Am I right?”
    Sheridan’s silence told it all.
    â€œMaybe she overheard Whalen or one of his boys bragging about what happened to William Murray?”
    She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
    â€œBut Whalen does know, yeah?”
    Her mouth pinched around the cigarette butt.
    â€œWhalen was at O’Neill’s place when Murray supposedly jumped from the roof?”
    She took out the cigarette and blue smoke wreathed her features. “I didn’t say that.”
    â€œHang on,” I said, “are you telling me that Candice was at O’Neill’s penthouse, too? With Whalen?”
    â€œI’m not telling you anything of the sort,” Sheridan said. “All I’m saying is that William Murray was a nice guy. Candice was a nice girl. You understand what I am saying?”
    I did.
    I stood up.
    â€œDid Candice mention what O’Neill was so pissed at her boyfriend for?”
    â€œNot to me,” she said.
    â€œOK, last question and then you’ll be rid of me: was Whalen the one who took Candice on a drive to Palmetto Beach?”
    â€œI’m going to admit that, am I? Don’t forget who owns this building, and who owns me for that matter. If anything happens to Whalen, then that’s my livelihood down the can.”
    â€œNot necessarily. See the thing is, these criminals do certain things through the books to make their businesses appear aboveboard and legal. I