Cool Blue Tomb by Paul Kemprecos

Author:Paul Kemprecos [Kemprecos, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Suspense
ISBN: 9780615819532
Google: etjDnQEACAAJ
Amazon: B007MJLPDI
Goodreads: 13616785
Publisher: Suspense Publishing
Published: 1991-04-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Hyannis used to be a bucolic backwater that bustled nonstop for thirteen weeks as a summer resort, closed up tighter than a clam after Labor Day, and didn’t come out of hibernation until the Fourth of July. Today it’s like a mini-city that bustles twelve months of the year.

The police station in Hyannis is an institutional brick building a few minutes from the Poseidon. I asked the dispatcher if I could see Lieutenant Souza and was buzzed into a maze of offices. Typewriters clacked in the background against a murmur of conversation and the ring of telephones.

The lieutenant was in his office cubicle reading a copy of the Cape Cod Times. Souza is a short man, plump as a smoked ham. He favors white shirts, mortician dark suits and ties regardless of the season or occasion. He uses a macassar to keep his dark brown hair shiny and in place and a hurricane couldn’t dislodge his coif. He has a sallow complexion and sad eyes. If he weren’t a cop, Souza would have been counseling married couples. People open up to his unthreatening, sympathetic face. A few of them have talked themselves into a reserved suite at the Barnstable County House of Correction.

He smiled wearily when he saw me. “Hi, Soc,” he said. “Just going through the local rag, thinking how when I was a rookie you could close the police station at five and the biggest thing was someone stealing a basket of quahogs from a pickup truck.”

He brushed aside a pile of papers and a couple of empty styrofoam coffee cups and spread the paper out on his desk. Tapping the pages with a forefinger, he said, “Look at this—assault and battery with a dangerous weapon; ninja stuff that’ll turn your stomach. Here’s a heist. And a woman over in Sandwich murdered.” He puffed out his fat cheeks. “I liked it better when it was quahogs.”

“Speaking of heists.” I pulled out a chair and sat down. “What can you tell me about the robbery at the Poseidon?”

He leaned back in his creaky swivel chair and locked his fingers behind a thick neck. “You interested in that? Oh yeah, the place is run by a couple of your countrymen. Had breakfast there a few times. Home fries were crispy the way I like them.” He shook his head. “The owners got that old-country mentality, though. They don’t trust banks, so they keep their money in a hidey-hole, their own private safe. Kid who works in the kitchen sees where they put it. He lives next door to one of the local punks. Tells his buddy, who pulls a stocking over his face, walks in around closing time with a gun, roughs up the owners, and rips off five grand. Open-and-shut case.”

“So why don’t you open and shut it?”

“Christ, Soc. You sound like the chief.” He shifted his weight forward. The chair protested. “Listen, before you became a private cop you used to be a flatfoot at some place

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