Tonight I Said Goodbye (St. Martin's Minotaur Mystery) Read Free Page A

friend, and while I told people I thought of her as a sister, a small part of my mind recognized that my breath didn't catch in my chest when I saw my real sister the way it could when I saw Amy.
    "So you and Pritchard think you can accomplish what dozens of cops and a few FBI agents haven't been able to, eh?" Amy said.
    "We're not that cocky," I said. "I figure it may take us two, maybe three days."
    She smiled. "Sure. Well, it looks like you've got your hands full. I read through most of this stuff before I came over, and if the cops have any worthwhile leads they aren't sharing them with the media, that's for sure."
    "You're not working on the story?"
    "No, they gave it to another reporter, a guy named Steve. He's a good writer, but I don't know if he has much of a nose for investigativework." She spotted a minute wrinkle on her pants and frowned at it, then tried to smooth it with the palm of her hand. It's the little things that bother Amy. She's indifferent to the striking resemblance the backseat of her car holds to a landfill, but she can't stand wrinkles.
    "Did you get me some background information?" I asked.
    "Here's everything Steve's written about the case," she said, passing me a stack of printouts. "That's all I could get."
    I read through them. Plenty of articles for just a five-day span, but none of them said much more than I already knew. Weston's body had been discovered Wednesday morning by his cleaning lady. He'd died from a single gunshot wound to the right temple, a wound determined to be self-inflicted. The gun, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, was still in his right hand when the body was discovered. It was registered in his name. The police had been summoned, and they spent the rest of the day trying unsuccessfully to locate Weston's wife and daughter. By Wednesday evening, the police had put out a missing persons report. There was no evidence to suggest kidnapping, which would have made it an FBI case, but a few agents from the Cleveland office were "assisting" CPD. The article revealed some suspicion among neighbors and acquaintances that the incident had something to do with a case Weston had been working on, but the police hadn't supported that theory. It was likely nothing more than curiosity and intrigue associated with the PI business. The police searched Weston's office and home and were "actively pursuing leads," but the detective in charge of the case, Rick Swanders, said they had no justifiable suspicion that the wife and daughter had been targeted by anyone Weston had investigated.
    "Well," I said when I was finished, "I haven't cracked the case yet. I suppose I'll actually have to conduct an interview or two."
    "I was expecting you to piece it out from the articles," Amy said with mock disappointment. "This is a real letdown."
    "Any chance your buddy Steve knows details he isn't sharing with his readers?"
    "There's a chance, but I wouldn't put much hope into it. You know how closemouthed cops are at the start of an investigation like this. Unless he's developed a great source, I doubt he's heard much more than you just read."
    I nodded. It had been a while since I'd left the force, but not so long that I'd forgotten the well-founded distrust most cops held for the media.
    "So where do you go from here?" Amy asked.
    "When Joe gets back, we'll go over to see Weston's father. We'll interview him for details about his son and try to get a feel for what his life had been like in recent months. Then we'll talk to the police and see how much cooperation we can expect to get from them. Once that's been taken care of, I imagine we'll focus on his business, learn as much as possible about his recent cases, and determine if there's anyone he's really pissed off."
    She nodded. "You think he was murdered?"
    "From everything I've heard or read, no, I don't think he was murdered. I think he killed himself. But the father wants us to prove otherwise, so I'm going to have to go into the case thinking he