Titanshade by Dan Stout

Author:Dan Stout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2019-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Outside Paulus’s office I looked around for Gellica, but she’d disappeared. I asked Paulus’s assistant for a phone and he led me to a spare desk. Turning my back to the room, I dialed the number that had been left on my pager. Ajax answered.

“How fast can you get to the butcher’s shop on Eubanks?” he said. “I found the Bell-Asandro kid.”

The missing oldest son. We had our witness. Or our killer.

19

I PULLED UP TO THE butcher’s shop to find a well-maintained Hasam Motors vehicle by the curb. It had cop car written all over it.

I walked over and sure enough, Ajax was sitting at the wheel. He nodded a greeting.

“You’ll want your armor on for this one,” he said, and handed me a vest. He was already wearing one over his dress shirt.

I’ve learned the hard way to never argue when someone tells you to put on protective gear.

As I strapped in I asked him, “So what’s the score with this?”

“Jermaine’s in there. The surviving son from the Bell-Asandro family.”

The butcher shop’s windows were dark, their shades drawn. “How’d you find him?” I asked.

“I decided to do a follow up with the Bells’ sister—Nina, the one you interviewed.”

“The recovering addict.”

“That’s the one. I got to her place and no one was home. Couple days’ worth of mail was sticking out of her mail slot and newspapers were sitting in front of her entry. I started thinking that she was in danger.”

“You entered without a warrant?”

“You kidding?” he said. “I was afraid she’d been attacked by the thrill killer who’s been in the news lately. Soon as the neighbors heard that, one of them with a spare key let me in.”

Never underestimate the morbid curiosity of the public.

“Clothes and essentials missing from the bathroom,” he said. “But there was a set of sheets on the couch.”

“She had someone staying with her,” I said.

“Neighbors described a young man who matches the profile we’ve got for the missing Bell-Asandro kid, her nephew. I expanded the BOLO to include Nina Bell and her vehicle. A patrolman spotted her car”—he pointed at a worn sedan down the road—“near her place of employment.” He moved his finger, indicating the butcher’s shop.

“I tried the door, but it’s locked. Kind of unusual for a business to be locked up during the day.”

“And where’s the butcher?”

He thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know. But this was good enough to get a warrant.”

“Pretty good police work, College.”

“What, you thought we were all going to sit around while you ran your mystery errand? The world moves on even when you’re not in the room, you know.”

I looked over the butcher’s shop, a two-story brick building that shared walls with neighbors on either side. Commercial space on the first floor, surely living space on the second. Outside the shop the sidewalks were thick with people shopping and running errands.

“We should call for backup.”

“I did,” he said. “You.”

After a beat his mandibles quivered. “I’m just messing with you.

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