Extra Kill - Dell Shannon Read Free Page A

spotted them, on Vineyard just west of Goldenrod going about
sixty."
    "Well, now,” said Hackett. "They weren't
exactly thinking very clear, you know, right then.”
    "They'd just shaken off Gonzales and Farber,
Sergeant, after a twenty-minute chase—and Lieutenant Slaney says
Farber's the best damn driver out of our precinct."
    Mendoza laughed. "That's a point—he's got you
there, Art. Of course,"—he sat up abruptly—"they
wouldn't have us after them if they weren't damn fools to start with,
and damn fools have a habit of acting like what they are. And like
the rest of us they have good luck and bad luck." He brushed
tobacco crumbs off his desk tidily, straightened the blotter, lined
up the desk tray with the calendar as he spoke; but automatically,
like a persnickety housewife, thought Walsh. Even in the midst of his
earnest effort to get through to them with this, Walsh couldn't help
noticing. One of those people who went around straightening pictures,
he figured Mendoza was: the orderly mind. He looked it too, very
natty and dapper in an ultraconservative way, like an ad in
Esquire—the faintest of patterns in the tie, and that suit must
have cost three hundred bucks if it cost a dime. Of course, all that
money Lieutenant Slaney said he had . . .
    "And if it wasn't the kids?" asked Mendoza.
"What else?"
    "It's crazy," said Walsh, "I know. But
suppose it was somebody who wanted to kill Joe as—well, who he was.
Not just a cop in a squad car. A—a specific cop."
    "Now let's not reach for it," said Hackett
dryly. "You know anybody who might have wanted Bartlett dead?
Who might try it like that?—not just the easiest method, by the
hell of a long way. I manage to keep up enough of a score on the
board myself so I don't come in for extra practice, but I'd think
twice about trying a target shot like that, practically in the dark
and at thirty miles an hour."
    "I know," said Walsh again, humbly. "It
sounds crazy to me too, Sergeant. If it wasn't those kids, I don't
know who it could've been, or why. But I just can't figure it as the
kids, when I think back over it. The way I told you, I didn't get any
kind of look at the car, I had my head down sliding into our car
beside Joe. I couldn't say if there was just the driver or three kids
or a dozen blue baboons in it. And when I did look up, at the shots,
it was already almost past, and all I could tell was it was a
sedan—but two-door or four-door I couldn't see—and a dark color,
and it had fins, so it was a fairly late model. That's all I can
honestly say, sir, for sure. I only had it in sight for about two
seconds. So I know it doesn't count for much when I say that,
thinking back, I get the impression that looking at those tailfins
side on, the way I saw the car as it went past, they curved up at the
ends."
    "The car the kids were driving," said
Mendoza, "was a two-year-old four-door Mercury. I don't keep up
with all these little changes in design—" He looked at
Hackett.
    "Straight fins," said Hackett tersely.
"When did all this begin to come to you, Walsh—in a dream?"
    "Look, sir, I'm just trying to be honest about
it. Maybe I was slow on the uptake, but like you say, a lot happened
all at once, and it wasn't until I had a chance to sit down and think
about the whole thing in—in retrospect, you know, that it added up
like this. Or didn't add up. And by then you all had my statement and
the inquest was set—and the sergeant said I was crazy, because how
else—and the coroner wouldn't 1et—"
    "You did quite right coming in to tell us,"
said Mendoza.
    "Second thoughts—" began Hackett, looking
a little angry.
    " Tómelo con calma,
chico , if we don't like a little new piece of
truth we can't shove it under the rug because we like something else
better. Which you know as well as I do. And another thing we all know
is that sometimes you get a clearer picture of a thing looking back
on it. No, you were quite right to pass this on, Walsh—you needn't
be afraid