Truth Kills by Nanci Rathbun

Truth Kills by Nanci Rathbun

Author:Nanci Rathbun [Rathbun, Nanci]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Chocolate Press LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter 19

Each man’s private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks.

—Katherine Fullerton Gerould

“Detective Wukowski.” He answered on the second ring, in his brusque baritone.

“Angelina Bonaparte, returning your call.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for getting back to me.”

Holy crap, was Wukowski being polite to me? Or was he maneuvering for a favor? I was betting on the latter. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I thought you’d want to know that there were no prints on the envelope or letter that we picked up at your apartment last night.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” I answered.

“Me, either. You have to live in the Amazon basin to not know about wearing gloves.” We chuckled a little, slightly uncomfortable, as usual.

“Hope I didn’t disturb your friend, Mr. Schroeder.” This time, he gave it the long-A pronunciation. Making nice, my Polish friends would call it. “We checked out his story and didn’t find any holes.”

“Again, it doesn’t surprise me. He’s not involved with my professional life.”

“And your personal life?”

“Why do you ask, Detective?” I made my voice silky. I wanted him to squirm.

“No reason.” He cleared his throat. “The contents of both letters were identical, so it’s not likely to be a personal vendetta. I mean, I don’t think Schroeder’s a likely suspect. I mean…”

“I get it, Wukowski. You no longer think it’s a ‘love thing.’” His silence was deafening. Had I gone too far?

Suddenly, sound exploded from the phone. Laughter—from Wukowski! “I deserved that. Sorry, Angie.”

Hmm. First he was polite to me, then he laughed when I busted him, now he was apologizing and calling me by my first name. Was this really Wukowski, or an imposter? Or were they spiking the water at police headquarters with happy juice? I decided to push it a little further. “What’s your first name?”

“Ted,” he mumbled.

“Your badge says ‘W.T. Wukowski.’”

“Yeah. Well, I go by my middle name.”

“Oh.” His first name must be pretty awful. Walter? Wilson? Wotan? I made a mental note to do some research.

The silence hung there for a minute, then he continued. “Any chance we can meet for a coffee or maybe a drink after work? Iggy and I have some ideas to run by you.”

“Sure. Okay. Six o’clock?” I named a little corner bar not far from my condo. Milwaukee has more bars and more churches per capita than almost any other city in North America. I’m not sure if there’s a relationship in that. Does too much prayer cause you to drink? Or vice versa?

I told Susan what had happened, and she immediately started to wag her finger at me. “Be careful, Angie. This isn’t some boy. He won’t be easy to manipulate.”

“Are any of them?”

Simultaneously, we sighed.

***

I put in a little time on the Marcy Wagner case that afternoon. There had to be a way to locate Hank Wagner through his love of all things Trekkie. A web search for “Star Trek” produced almost seventy million hits.



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