Fire Cracker by Shirley Kennett

Author:Shirley Kennett [Kennett, Shirley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-8683-8
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-10-03T22:50:00+00:00

CHAPTER

16

CRACKER BROKE HIS DIAL-UP connection to the police department network. He had just finished checking the active arrest records and was not terribly surprised at what he had found there.

He was disappointed in his last effort. He had made sure no trace remained of the e-mail messages, and there was no longer any record of the local phone call the Mulligan woman had made to Hardee’s. The computerized record of the wasted drugs still existed in the hospital’s system, as he meant it to. There was nothing to connect him to the whole ugly thing. She might blab—probably would, to save her skin—but the police would have only her word for it. The identity of her mystery blackmailer would remain a secret. Most likely the police wouldn’t believe her story, which did sound a little outlandish. He chuckled, trying to put a mechanical sound to it. Mulligan was supposed to have claimed that Dr. Graham helped her obtain the drugs. Fat chance of that working out. The little wimp had caved in at the first difficulty, even before there were any difficulties. It had all gone smoothly, and poof—she let it tumble down around her.

Looking back on it, he should have known the woman was inadequate for the purpose. After all, her idea of concealing her trail had been to go to a different computer from the one at her usual post to enter the dispensing requests, as if merely using another input device could fool someone. She was a fine sample of the raw material he had to work with, to try to bend to his will. No wonder he kept missing the target.

Wanting to get back at Mulligan for being such a weak lump of flesh, he took a few minutes to ruin her credit rating, report all of her credit cards stolen, give her a criminal record for prostitution, and order a hundred magazine subscriptions and ThighMasters in her name. He hadn’t messed with that kind of petty stuff since he was a kid, but it made him feel better.

Then he went out to the kitchen and peeled a banana while considering what to do next. It was time for Plan C, and it had to be one with no loopholes.

Cracker opened his mind, let in the thought that was circling like an airplane in a holding pattern. Picked at it, rolled it around, examined the thought from as many different directions as he could. Let it settle in, put its feet up, and ask for a beer.

When the thought of killing Mom Elly was good and comfortable in his mind, he walked back to the spare room. He took a tablet of stationery, the kind that comes from drugstores, from a desk drawer. He wrote a short note, then searched through the desk until he found the ink pad he kept for just one purpose. Pressing his right thumb onto the black spongy surface and then onto the note, he signed with a thumbprint. It took him a couple of minutes to find a small envelope.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.