Holly Blues by SUSAN WITTIG ALBERT

Author:SUSAN WITTIG ALBERT [ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

McQuaid: Joe’s Feedlot

McQuaid pulled up next to the black-and-white police cruiser in the parking lot of the hamburger joint outside of Sanders and unclenched his hands from the steering wheel. He flexed his stiff, cadaverlike fingers and sucked in a ragged breath. The drive from Omaha had taken over four hours, twice as long as it should have. The snow had never stopped, blinding white, blowing, flying, pinging pellet-hard against the car windows, clogging the windshield wipers, a blizzard if there ever was one. It had been a slick trip, too, hazardous and nerve-wrenching. Interstate 29 had been plowed, all right, but the snow was coming so furiously that the plows didn’t have a prayer.

The blowing pellets were mesmerizing, and he had driven mostly by focusing on the taillights of the vehicle ahead of him, hoping there wouldn’t be some sort of pileup and they’d all end up in one huge bumper-to-bumper chain collision. That hadn’t happened, luckily, but otherwise it was bad enough. Cars and trucks were swerving and fishtailing all over the place, especially on the icy overpasses, where they executed elephantine 360s, like Sumo wrestlers on ice skates. A couple of eighteen-wheelers had jackknifed across two lanes, and another skidded onto the median and flipped onto its side, right in front of him.

But if the interstate heading south had been a skating rink, Route 36 heading west was a helluva lot worse, with only one lane plowed and the visibility deteriorating as the twilight deepened, so that by the time he’d reached the turnoff, he was barely creeping, the car rocking with every blast of the crosswind. The rented Chevy didn’t have snow tires or chains, so he was pretty much at the mercy of the blizzard, which wasn’t showing any mercy at all. It was after six o’clock now, and dark, and if he hadn’t spotted the red neon sign, Joe’s Feed Lot, bleeding blood-red onto the snow, he’d have missed the narrow Sanders turnoff altogether. Joe’s Feed Lot. Any port in a storm, although as ports went, Joe’s was better than some.

Wearily, he switched off the ignition. He had not planned to make this trip. He had meant it when he’d told Sally that he was going to pick up a couple of good books, a bag of snacks and a few beers, and head for the motel, where he could turn up the heat, stretch out on the bed, make a couple of phone calls, and spend the next twenty-four hours reading and snoozing and getting pleasantly blitzed.

That was the plan, anyway. He’d already gotten as far as the books, the snacks, and the beer. He’d even put in a call to Joyce Dillard. No answer, which took him off the hook until the evening, when she’d more likely be home. After the call, he picked up one of the books and settled himself on the bed to read, with the television tuned to a NASCAR race rerun on ESPN. And then the

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.