Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky Read Free Page A

she asked.
    “More
or less. Mrs. Maxwell’s gorilla boyfriend decided to raise a fuss, but
Brenner tamed him pretty quickly.”
    “Nice,”
she said, looking up at Brenner. “Going back up there to see her
home?”
    I
shook my head. “No, we got what we need, and I don’t want to scare her, have
her say something to her husband about men following her. She can get home
on her own, and tomorrow night we’ll dump it in Maxwell’s lap.” I paused.
“Speaking of which, I’d like you to go through the presentation with
Brenner. Help him on the do’s and don’ts of how to close out a case with a
client.”
    “What
are you going to be doing?”
    “Sleeping.
I have about twenty-five pawn shops I need to hit in the next couple of
days, see if I can find Mrs. Dillon’s ring. Then connect it with her
thieving junkie nephew and close it out.”
    “You
got a call a couple of hours ago.” She pulled the pad on her desk close.
“Said his name was Shuster.”
    “Marc
Shuster?”
    “Didn’t
leave a first name or a number. When I told him you’d be back in the office
later, he said he’d call at eleven-thirty.”
    I
checked my watch. Eleven-thirty was forty-five minutes away and I wasn’t
going to sit around the office waiting for his call. I could be home in ten
minutes.
    “When
he calls back, give him my home number,” I said. “I’ll talk to him before I
hit the sack.” I turned to Brenner. “Nice work out there on the street
tonight. I’ll see you at 9:30 tomorrow evening, and we’ll go over the case
one more time before Maxwell shows up.”
    He
nodded.
    “See
you tomorrow night, Sara.”
    She
smiled. And was still smiling as I went out the door.
     

Chapter
Two
     
    I
live about five blocks south of the office, on Bacon. Named after Sir
Francis, I believe, not the pork product.
    I’d
chosen the apartment because it was close enough to walk to work, and I had
walked those five blocks daily before Joshua’s murder, as well as anywhere
else I needed to go. A car would have made things easier, but the cost of
rationed gasoline made owning one almost pointless. Bain had offered me
Joshua’s Jeep, complete with the stickers that let me fill it up at any
government motor pool, city, state or area. It wasn’t a difficult decision
to say yes.
    So
now I drove. I get enough exercise when I’m working.
    My
phone began to ring at exactly 11:30. Shuster had always been
prompt.
    I’d
met Marc Shuster when we were both assigned to the 716th Military Police
Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, before I joined the police department
here. We’d been pretty tight at the time, but we’d drifted apart when his
enlistment ended two years before mine. I got the occasional email and at
least one phone call a year, but he’d moved on with his life and so had I. I
wasn’t interested in business, he wasn’t interested in what was happening in
the battalion. We ran out of things to talk about.
    We’d
kept in touch over the years, after I left the military and became a cop,
but it had been infrequent. The last time I’d talked to him, he was running
a gun shop outside Denver and doing quite well. Shuster had the gift of gab
and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of firearms, thanks to his
gun-collecting father.
    Then
came the war. I hadn’t heard from him in more than five years. I didn’t even
know if I’d be talking to a human or a Vee.
    I
picked up the phone. “Hello, Shuster.”
    “Charlie
Welles,” he said. I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Long time,
old buddy.”
    “Yeah,
long time. How’s Denver?”
    “Beats
the hell out of me. I’ve been in Omaha for almost four years.”
    Four
years. Down here, they released us from the internment camps less than three
years ago. The only ones who got out before that were those willing to be
turned.
    “Still
eating that fried okra?”
    Shuster
was silent for a moment, then laughed.