Death Across the Lake by Lyle Hightower

Author:Lyle Hightower [Hightower, Lyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-16T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I had to take Andrew Hensley into custody as quietly as possible. I could have walked in to the hotel, gone up to his room, and escorted him out of the building, but I didn’t want to tip anyone who might have been watching him that we had him. I staked out the main entrance of the Smith House Hotel, hanging out on the corner a couple of blocks down, waiting for him to leave. I didn’t have to wait long. At about five, he walked out the front door, presumably to find food somewhere on Church Street, and I followed, thinking I would approach him if I could get to him as he walked along a quieter side street.

He turned down the next corner and I ducked into the alley behind the hotel and intercepted him as he walked up Pine Street. I approached him from behind, calling out his name. He turned and faced me, his pallid skin white as a sheet, beads of sweat on his temples. I could see this was going to be easy; he was a wreck.

I read him his rights. He put up no struggle, and I walked him up to Church Street, with no handcuffs. I kept an eye out for anyone following us, but I didn’t see anything suspicious.

“I don’t want to have to cuff you,” I said. “People we arrest sometimes end up dead, and I’d like to avoid that happening, so we’re going to the library.”

He looked confused when I said this. “I will cuff you if I have to, though, so no funny business.”

He seemed willing to cooperate. There was nowhere for him to go, really. I marched him up the front steps of the library. I suppose someone could have seen us, but it was unlikely, and Church Street was bustling. If anyone had tailed us, we probably lost them.

Irene was working the floor, handling requests from the few patrons in the library. An older man in coveralls stood in front of the agriculture section, scanning the spines, his hat in his hands. A young girl was leafing through a copy of The Scarlet Letter. A man in a suit perused the radio repair section. Irene flitted between all of them, making sure they had what they needed, before she came to us.

“I need a quiet room,” I said. She nodded in understanding, and took us down into the basement, where she led us to a windowless office. The only light was a small desk lamp, and she turned it on, and left us there, I sitting behind an old desk and Hensley in a folding chair, as if at a job interview.

“You look unwell,” I said, trying to be charitable, for at least a minute, before I got down to brass tacks.

“It’s been difficult. Irving’s death…something like that doesn’t happen every day. It’s hard to know where to go now, how to proceed.”

“Have you spoken at all with the other members of the executive with regards to what you’ll do next?” I asked.

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