Blood Will Have Blood
Page 22
“Why the hell didn’t you stop him? I might have wound up in some ditch.”
“I thought you’d enjoy the experience. And he was only trying to help.”
“He wasn’t ticked off about Lenny?”
“You kidding? Don’t waste your time worrying about Leider Vineyards. They’re coining it. You should see the castle he just built. Swimming pool. Private screening room.”
“How very Hollywood.”
“Rumor has it he shows dirty skin flicks to a select few. I haven’t been invited yet, but I have hopes.”
“Where else should I look for Lenny?” He gave in with a grimace and a secret vow not to waste more than twenty-four hours at the task. “Girlfriend?”
Kate shrugged. “There’s his ex, of course. I think she’s somewhere back east. She may have heard from him. I don’t know of any local contender.”
“No gossip? You’re slipping.”
“If there is, you’ll hear it soon enough.”
Spraggue’s right eyebrow shot up.
She laughed. “How do you do it?”
“The trick with the eyebrow? I’m not telling.”
“No. How can you keep asking questions like that? Rattling them off like a cop?”
“Practice,” he said. “I was once a private investigator.”
“I will never understand that particular episode in your life, Spraggue. Want me to rub your back?”
He refused. The temptation was still there, clouding his judgment. She sat next to him on the rock, close but not touching. “I’m not sure I understand it,” he said. “Romantic illusions, maybe. Mostly I dug up dirt everybody would have been better off not knowing.”
She nibbled at the corner of a fingernail and shot him a sidelong glance. “So you went back to fantasy land. You and your actor eyes.”
“Actor eyes?”
“They show exactly what you’re thinking, what you’re going to do next. They do, Michael. When you relax, they’re like windows, but the minute you start asking questions, I can’t see through them anymore. They glaze over.”
“Otherwise I’d need a blindfold,” he said. “Your eyes never give you away. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
“Good,” she said.
“Kate, I have to ask one more question.”
“Shoot.”
“Did you recognize that body?”
“Spraggue—”
“Come on. Someone put it where you’d find it. Or where you’d take the blame for it.”
“I didn’t find it. The cops did.”
“Did they say why they looked? Why they just happened to check out the car trunk?”
“They didn’t answer questions. They asked them. Like you.”
Spraggue bent over and twisted a clover stem until it broke off in his hand. “Sorry.”
“Spraggue?”
“Yeah.”
“I really didn’t recognize that body. But …”
“But?”
“But what if Lenny did?”
“He could have stuffed the body into that old car wreck, if that’s what you mean. He certainly knew where the car was, knew that nobody was likely to disturb it.”
Kate brushed a leaf out of her hair, wound a strand tightly around her index finger. “Then that could be why he disappeared.…”
“The timing would be about right.”
Kate stayed silent, closed her eyes.
“Do you still want me to find him?” Spraggue asked.
“Yes.”
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Acknowledgment
I’d like to thank James Morrow, Jacki Forbes, and Richard Barnes for their comments, criticism, and encouragement.
About the Author
Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries. Her witty private-investigator heroine has been hailed as “a true original” by Sue Grafton. Barnes is also the author of the Michael Spraggue Mysteries and a stand-alone novel, The Perfect Ghost.
A winner of the Anthony Award and a finalist for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, Barnes lives in the Boston area with her husband and son. Visit her at www.lindabarnes.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1982 by Linda Appleblatt Barnes
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1449-6
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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