You Know Who Killed Me Read Free

cigarettes, raising my eyebrows.
    â€œGo ahead,” he said. “Burn yourself down from the inside. Just don’t touch off the gas tank.”
    â€œThanks. I was afraid I’d get a lecture.” I lit up and blew a plume of smoke at Miss February. “What did you mean, ‘You know who killed me’?”
    â€œWhere you been since the beginning of the year, under a rock?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œChrist, I wish you had company.”
    He led me outside and pointed his chin at a tall floodlit billboard a hundred yards away from where we were standing, faced away from us at a slight angle. It had a giant blow-up photograph of a smiling middle-aged man under a legend six feet tall:
    â€œYOU KNOW WHO KILLED ME!”
    At the bottom, in letters and numerals nearly as large, was the tip line for the sheriff’s department.
    The man was wearing a cable-knit sweater embroidered with reindeer.
    We went back inside. The heat from the oil stove in the corner felt good after the dank cold.
    â€œTaken over Christmas. They don’t come much fresher. That sign faces the expressway. There are four more just like it, scattered around like Easter eggs, only a damn sight more visible. Paid for by the widow.”
    â€œWho is he?”
    â€œDonald Gates. Thirty-eight. We scraped him out of his basement New Year’s Day, shot twice in the head.”
    â€œDrug killing?”
    â€œIf he was pushing, he was craftier than any dealer I ever heard of. No sign of drugs on the premises, nothing showed up at the autopsy. I had to bet? No. No out-of-the-ordinary deposits or withdrawals in his banking records, no history of gambling. The only one he owed money to was his mortgage lender, and he was on top of his payments. Anyway Fifth Third isn’t employing strong-arms this year.”
    â€œWhat’s the status?”
    â€œWe’re following up on some promising leads.”
    â€œI’m not a reporter, Lieutenant.”
    â€œOkay. We’re tapped out. Average Joe, by all accounts: not rich, not important, stay-at-home wife, one-point-five kids, a few friends, fewer enemies, and they’re all accounted for. Robbery’s out; wife found nothing missing.”
    â€œWhere’d he work?”
    â€œCity of Iroquois Heights. Maintained the computer that operates the traffic lights.”
    â€œMaybe somebody got stuck at a red and took it out on him.”
    â€œI’ve heard stupider reasons. The last person to see him was the guard in the building where they keep the mainframe. He told his fellow workers he was going home to change, then join his wife at some friends’ New Year’s Eve party. When he didn’t show and didn’t answer his cell or the phone at home, she went there and found him in the rec room in the basement. Two nine-millimeter slugs behind the right ear.” He pointed a finger at the spot behind his and waggled his thumb twice.
    â€œAnd I come into this how?”
    He leaned back against his workbench, crossing his arms. “Legwork. His wife thinks we’re dragging our feet, hoping the case will go away; that’s why the billboards. She’s thinking of the wrong cops, but I guess I can’t blame her for that based on past history. Gates’s life insurance is footing the bill probably. The local press picked it up and put it out on the wire. It’s national now.”
    â€œNo surprise. It’s a catchy line.”
    â€œYeah. So now we’re getting calls from all over the country on top of the tips we always get locally, on top of all the routine meshuga that goes with a homicide investigation. They all have to be run down, and I’ve only got fifteen deputies to do the running.”
    I crushed out my cigarette on the concrete floor. “I don’t like where this is going.”
    â€œMaybe you’ve got something better to do.”
    â€œMaybe you know more about what rock I’ve been under than