Playing With Matches by Julie Hyzy

Author:Julie Hyzy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: suspense, murder, action, chicago, series, female private investigator, hyzy, not cozy
Publisher: Julie Hyzy

Back at the office, I made a bunch of notes, bringing the Stratton investigation up-to-date. As of this moment, I had no front-runner for the murderer’s role. But that was okay. I preferred it this way.

No shortage of suspects. And I knew that there still lurked the possibility that Gretchen had indeed been killed in a robbery gone bad. The tag-team theory felt right, but I thought it unlikely that two strangers could have affected the efficient, timely killing with such precision. This hit had the look of something carefully planned. Except, of course, for the blowout that started it all.

I put in a call to my accident re-constructionist buddy, J.T. Boggs. His answering service informed me he was out of town on business. No idea when he’d return, but they’d be sure to let him know I called. I also called a techie friend who might just be able to retrieve old information from Gretchen’s phone. In the meantime, I plugged it into its charger and into my wall outlet. The sooner we got this baby fired up, the better.

The last phone records had arrived and I set to the tedious job of searching them. I noted a couple of patterns, a few repeat calls on John Stratton’s cell that I intended to investigate and a few easily traced stragglers from the Stratton residence. Nothing of note on the home phone.

I pulled out Ekk’s handwritten note from the back of my calendar. Toot, the alleged drug dealer’s number.

With no small degree of trepidation, I went over Stratton’s office records. Not there.

Saving the best for last, I pulled his cell phone records to the top of the pile. Many of the numbers Stratton dialed had the same 847 area code, so I focused on the next three numbers—the exchange—instead.

Bingo.

There it was, just as Ekk had claimed. I jumped up to make photocopies of the records that’d been sent over and then took time to highlight Toot’s number whenever it appeared. From the looks of things, Stratton and Toot had a chatty relationship. The phone calls started well before Gretchen’s death, averaging about two per month. As of last month the call frequency had jumped to four times a week.

If Stratton were becoming more heavily addicted, then the additional contacts made sense, but even keeping that in mind, the number of calls was excessive. Unless these two were golf buddies—which I doubted—why would Stratton need to call Toot so often?

One way to find out.

I phoned Stratton’s office asking the receptionist if he had any time for me to stop by. Unfortunately, Martha informed me, Mr. Stratton was tied up through the end of the day. But she promised to pass along my message.

While still waiting for Lieutenant Cabral’s call regarding my motorcycle inquiry—I opened Ziggie Krol’s file and started in on that little pain in my ass.

I glossed over everything I’d gone over before: credit information—excellent, natch; criminal record—none; employment history—not applicable for a self-made gazillionaire; background miscellaneous—hmmm.

Hannah generally took down the personality information.

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.