Head Shot by Dan Ames

Author:Dan Ames [Ames, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Slogan Books, New York, NY
Published: 2019-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 35

Ray pulled into the driveway of the late James Tomczak and unleashed more expletives in one sentence than he had in the last year.

The Channel 6 news van sat in the middle of the drive, surrounded by police cruisers and unmarked detective cars.

As he approached, Nancy Bishop and her cameraman descended upon him.

"Do you know where Ferkovich is?" she asked.

Ray continued walking toward the house.

"No comment."

"Do you think he's headed for Rodgers Bay?" she persisted.

He kept walking without responding.

As the cameraman lowered his camera, she fired one last question at him with a smirk on her face.

"What took you so long to get here, Mitchell?"

He stopped and turned back to look at her. She answered with a sweet smile.

Ray felt the heat under his collar and with great restraint, ducked under the police tape and went inside the house.

A local cop met him in the kitchen and showed him the way to the basement.

The dead man lay as he had apparently fallen, his arms behind his back, his feet resting on the bottom step.

The smell of death and decay was powerful and by the looks of the victim, soon to get much stronger. Ray heard a scurry behind a stand of gray metal shelving and guessed the rats were disappointed in the home's most recent arrivals.

Mitchell looked around the small basement. There were boxes, a small but tidy workbench, rags, a couple of sawhorses and some scrap lumber. Except for the corpse, the room reminded him of his own basement back in Milwaukee.

A shadow fell on the steps leading down into the basement, and Ray looked up in time to see the crime scene technician walking gingerly down the rickety steps.

Paul Casey nodded at Ray, who returned the gesture.

"Find me as soon as you're done here," Ray said as he headed for the stairs.

"You got it."

Mitchell walked back through the kitchen and found Detective Krahn standing just outside the back door. The two walked into the backyard out of earshot of the local cops.

"Did anyone talk to her?" he asked with a nod toward Nancy Bishop.

Krahn grunted. "I think she got a few questions in but these local guys didn't know much.”

Ray kicked some loose dirt with his shoe.

"How did she get here so fast? I'm tempted to arrest her."

"On what charges?"

Ray thought about that one.

"Let's take a walk," he said, and headed for the abandoned truck in the woods.

The smell of pine needles and thick grass wafted in the air, a testament to the area's increased foot traffic and the fact that pollen was flying at this time of the year.

Ray felt a tickle in his nose and hoped that his allergies didn't kick up. Sometimes ragweed caused his nose to run for days and gave him some nasty sinus issues.

He and Krahn walked past the metal shed and the abandoned tractor behind the house.

"He had a nice little place here," commented Krahn.

"Yeah, nice and peaceful until now," Ray said.

They reached the small knoll and the clearing, then

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