No Way Home by Rylie Dark

Author:Rylie Dark [Dark, Rylie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rylie Dark
Published: 2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Carly and Lyle exchanged surprised glances as they stepped across the stream toward the tiny cardboard shanty.

This guy must know something firsthand, she realized.

She was sure there had been no official public suggestion that the vagrant’s death was a murder. This case had never even been mentioned in connection with the others.

“You’re right; he was murdered,” Lyle said to the man. “How did you know? Were you here when it happened?”

The vagrant crawled out into the open and sat looking up at them.

“Naw, I was occupied elsewhere. It happened late at night, and night is my foraging time. I’m usually out and about, hitting the dumpster circuit. Must have been quick and quiet, though. The other guys who were here slept right through it.”

“Other guys?” Carly asked, glancing around the wasteland beneath the bridge.

“There were five of us living down here at the time, including Slim. The other three moved out right after. Got scared they might be next. I mean, people dying isn’t anything new, but all that blood really got to them. Me, I don’t let that kind of thing worry me much. Whenever my time comes, I’m ready for it. I don’t much care how it happens. I’ve had a full life.”

That struck Carly as an odd thing for a homeless man to say, but he certainly sounded as though he meant it.

“They call me Buster, by the way,” he added.

“We’d be grateful for your help, Buster,” Lyle said. “Tell me more about what happened.”

“I got back just after the guys woke up and saw what they saw. They sent me out to find a cop, which I did.”

“It was reported a suicide. What made you think otherwise?”

“It just wasn’t Slim’s style. He was plenty depressed, and he didn’t want to live—and who doesn’t get that way from time to time? Most of us don’t ever act on that feeling. That’s what Slim kept telling me, he just didn’t have the nerve to kill himself. He kept wishing somebody would put him out of his misery. Well, I guess some angel must have heard him and made his wish come true.”

Then he added with a dark chuckle, “The lucky guy.”

Carly remembered her own words with a chill.

“I wonder if the killer doesn’t think of himself as some kind of angel of mercy.”

“Didn’t you tell the cops who showed up on the scene you thought it was a murder?” she asked.

“Sure, but they didn’t listen. Truth is, they barely questioned any of us, almost like they were trying to act like we weren’t here. Nothin’ unusual about that either. I guess a murder would’ve inconvenienced them. So—they decided it was a suicide. They weren’t curious about Slim at all.”

“Did you catch the name of the officer who interviewed you?” Lyle asked.

“No. But I remember he had an ugly rusty-looking goatee.”

“What can you tell us about Slim?” Carly asked.

“Well, he’d been here a month or so. Don’t know where he was before. He heard voices, and he talked back to them.

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