(2012) Cross-Border Murder by David Waters Read Free Book Online

“Single? Married? Divorced?”
    My question brought out a frown. “The men I’ve met so far have been either immature, or lost, or over-achieving yuppies,” she sounded disappointed.
    She stared at the motel before getting out.
    “It’s a motel,” she said, “that caters to the local sex trade.”
    I nodded. “I thought of mentioning it when you first told me where you were staying.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    “You came on as pretty strong and arrogant. You chose it. I didn’t want to interfere. Maybe we should move you somewhere else.”
    “No. I’m okay for now. I met someone this morning in the coffee shop. She works at a strip joint down the street. She’s a nice person. She claims it’s still the nicest and least expensive of the motels around here.” She got out of the car. She gave me a proud, determined look. “I’ll probably pester you tonight for a progress report.”
    Back in my den, I made some notes of everything I could remember of what Professor Hendricks had said. Before trying to sort them out I went to my bookshelves where I keep back copies of a dozen major magazines. I retrieved one that had a feature on Bull’s assassination, and another that had run lengthy extracts from a book about Bull’s bizarre life. I made a note of the title and the author of the book.
    Professor Hendricks had got most of his facts right. But the only thing that really interested me was whether he had been right in his claim that Monaghan had worked for Bull. That assumption now puzzled me. Monaghan had been described as virulently against his country’s strategic and military policy. Bull, on the other hand, had designed a battleship cannon for use by the US during the Vietnam War. Because of his ongoing work with the American military establishment, he had been granted American citizenship through a special Bill sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater. True, later he had had contracts with the Chinese, but that had occurred during the period of rapprochement between the United States and China. He first ran into trouble with the Canadian and American governments when he violated embargoes about shipping arms to South Africa. He had been indicted and jailed briefly in Vermont. But his treatment by the Americans had been more of a slap on the wrist than a serious effort to halt his work. Besides, his rogue behavior, as it was increasingly called by colleagues and enemies alike, had occurred after Monaghan had been killed. My instincts told me that I was wasting my time pursuing the lead Hendricks had supplied. Still, if Monaghan’s death had been in any way connected to his involvement with Bull’s projects, the best place to begin looking for clues was the American Intelligence Services. Trying to get any information from Canadian Intelligence was hopeless. But Washington leaked information more easily. I put a call through to my managing editor and explained what I had found out so far. I had this image of him raising one eyebrow first and then the other: one expressing curiosity, the other a cautious skepticism.
    “Our stringer in Washington,” I said, “do you think he would know anyone with contacts in American intelligence?”
    He laughed. “Funny you should ask that.”
    “Why?”
    “Just last week we were wondering whether we could afford to keep him on retainer. Most of his stuff wasn’t much different from what we get on the wire services that we pay for already. I went through his file. One of the reasons we hired him in the first place was that he claimed he had access to sources in both the CIA and the FBI. For some reason that impressed some of us. Ironically we’ve yet to ask him to use them.”
    “I’d like to do so with this case.”
    “He may want extra money. May have to pay his contacts.” He sighed. “We’re on a ridiculous tight budget these days.”
    “Mel, I’ll pay for it myself if I have to.”
    There was a brief silence. “Sounds like you’ve