Change of Heart by Andrew Lanh

Author:Andrew Lanh [Lanh, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andrew Lanh
Published: 2020-02-08T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hank was a problem. Nothing to do as the days went by, still on leave from his duties as a trooper, drifting, he shadowed the police investigation—and my own investigation. One afternoon, stopping at his mother’s home to check on her, I found him in the backyard, a rake in hand, piling up the fallen leaves with a vengeance, so dedicated his concentration that he didn’t hear me approach from behind. Tapping him on the shoulder, instinctively he swung around and reached for the gun he no longer carried. A sheepish grin. “I could have shot you.”

“With a rake?”

He slammed the rake and tossed it into the pile. “I’m losing my mind, Rick.”

“I know. Give it time.”

He shook his head. “I gotta do something.”

“No, you don’t.”

But of course surreptitiously he did, something I learned a few days later from Detective Ardolino.

The dectective roared into the phone, “I’m becoming fuckin’ Mother Teresa these days, Rick, one charitable act after the other, mostly involving phone calls to you.”

“Edie’s murder?”

A sarcastic grunt. “No, I’m calling to discuss the trade war with China.”

“Sorry.”

“Your boy Hank. Again. A nose for trouble, that one. I thought I told you to rein him in. Let the professionals do their job. That is, me. I wasn’t talking about you, a rank amateur.”

“Hank’s a professional. A cop. His inclination is to get into the mix. A crime committed, him in the middle of it, he wants justice.”

He cut me off. “All right, all right. Jesus Christ. Save the speech for your retirement dinner. All I’m saying is that Hank is headed for trouble. This morning a confrontation with that scumbag Harvey Michaud, Edie’s born-under-a-rock brother, if that’s what he is. I don’t know what Hank knows—or how he found out—but maybe Edie told him about visits from that sleaze machine. Anyway, Hank trails him to some bar and tries to engage him in conversation—a polite way of saying he tries to shake him up a bit, threaten, intimidate, get on his bad side. Whatever.”

“And it didn’t turn out well?”

A cigarette cough, raspy. “Bingo. You got a way with words, Lam boy. I guess he didn’t call to give you the news. Well, until the bartender broke it up, Michaud punched him in the gut, took him by surprise, and Hank came back with a punch to the solar plexus. Luckily, an off-duty cop was there, calmed the drunken waters, sent the combatants to opposite corners, but this cop knows the lay of the land. So he lets me know. No arrests. Harvey skedaddled out the door, probably because he got a million warrants. And Hank just sat brooding in a corner eating his curds and wheys, sticking in his thumb …” Confusion in his voice. “However the fuck that nursery rhyme goes. What the hell is a whey anyway? Which is why I’m calling you. Again.” He stopped, out of breath, and ended, “I got real work to do. You can go back to nursing a paper cut, which is probably the only danger you got in your job.

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.