The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 by John Sandford

Author:John Sandford
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The news from Washington was disheartening at first. During the six weeks following the murder of Maria Zogu, the second victim, 166 men were recruited into the army from the Detroit area. Many phone calls later determined the following:

Thirty-four with the paratroopers had been shipped overseas directly after basic training, that service having suffered heavy casualties during the push toward Germany.

Twenty-three were discharged for unfitness or insubordination.

Sixteen of those were tracked down and their movements accounted for the night Bette Kowalski was murdered.

The remaining seven were interviewed and eliminated as likely suspects.

Three died during training, one from incaution during a drill involving live rounds, one from cerebral hemorrhage after a brawl in the PX, one from Spanish influenza.

Eighteen soldiers who’d been exposed to the stricken man were in quarantine at the time of the last murder.

The squad tabled six who supplied sound alibis for at least one of the first two killings.

Little by little, with help from Osprey’s Homicide detail, the uniform division, and reserves, most of the eighty-plus men left fell away, leaving just four: a handy number for the Four Horsemen to interview separately.

“What we got?” Zagreb asked when they reunited at 1300.

Canal passed an unlit cigar under his nose and made the same face the others usually made when he lit one. “My guy’s eighteen going on eleven. Tried every whistle stop between here and his hometown in Texas before he found a recruiting sergeant blind enough to accept the date of birth he gave. He’s a shrimp. Bette had muscles on her muscles from pounding the pavement and smacking around deadbeats. She’d’ve took him three falls out of three.”

Burke said, “Mine took a swing at me when I told him what I was looking into. I knocked him flat, frisked him and the dump he lives in. If he’s our guy, he sure cleans up after himself. He’s in holding downstairs.”

“We’ll take turns,” Zagreb said. “Mac?”

McReary got out his notebook. “Lives in Dearborn. With his mother, the landlord says. Both out; she cooks in the bomber plant in Willow Run, gets off at midnight. My guess is he’s sowing some oats before he ships out. The landlord wouldn’t let me check out the apartment. Should we get a warrant?”

“Not yet.” Zagreb looked at his watch. “Twenty to twelve. We’ll try schmoozing Mom when she comes home.”

“What about yours, Zag?” Canal asked.

“Halfway to Honolulu on a troop ship. If we turn anything up on a search warrant we can tip off the MPs, though I’d sure hate to dump it in somebody else’s lap.”

Burke grinned at McReary. “Slap on the Old Spice, Junior. If you can Romeo a jane like Bette’s roomie, the old lady on Dearborn’s a fish in a barrel.”

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