7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7 by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page A

We can handle it, no problem. You just sit tight up there and take care of your lady.”
    Frank came back on the line. “Well, you heard it. I thought you’d want to know. We will process this one. No need for you to get involved.”
    “Who was murdered?”
    “Not sure it qualifies as a murder, Ike. Essie notwithstanding, it’s a suspicious death as of the moment. One of the maintenance workers up at the college. His co-workers found him in the cab of one of the school’s mini-vans. Motor running, garden hose from the exhaust pipe in the window, looks like a suicide.”
    “But you don’t think so?”
    “It could be, of course, but there’s no suicide note, and he had a nasty contusion on the back of his head. As I said, suspicious.”
    “Stay on it, Frank. Your instincts are usually pretty good. If it looks suspicious to you, there must be something to it.”
    “Okay. I’ll get on the data you sent off to the Highway Patrol lab today and let you know what they say ASAP. I reckon we should wipe this from the office computer when we’re done. You have all of the originals, I assume.”
    “I do, so do that, yes.”
    “I know it’s too soon to ask, but do you have any idea when you’ll be back?”
    “I can’t say just now. I have to talk to the doctor and then we’ll see what happens next.”
    “Take your time. We have everything under control. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot. Doctor Fiske’s secretary called. She said that Fiske was concerned and all that and wanted your cell phone number. I told him we didn’t give out personal numbers but if he’d leave his, I’d have you call him.”
    “That’s Fiske as in the Acting President of Callend?”
    “That’s the one. He wanted to check on Ruth. I guess that’s pretty normal.”
    “I suppose so. Tell him, if he calls again, what I just told you and that I’ll call the university when I have some real news.”
    Ike hung up and stared at his laptop. He tried and failed to conjure up an accurate face for Scott Fiske. Aside from being tallish, fair-haired, almost an art nouveau throwback look, all he could remember about Fiske was that Ruth had some questions about him. He couldn’t remember what they were at the moment. He might later. His absentminded musings were displaced by what transpired on the computer screen. A colleague from another jurisdiction that he’d met at a local police conference the previous year had given him a screen saver. He’d installed it out of curiosity and left it there out of laziness. It depicted a series of chase scenes from actual police footage, including the famous O.J. Simpson in a white Bronco caravanning through Los Angeles. He rarely watched the whole sequence because he either switched to an application or turned the computer off. At the moment he watched fascinated as a police car from somewhere in the Midwest, in pursuit of some baddie or other, pulled to the car’s right rear, hooked the bumper, and put it into a spin. Like Ruth’s vehicle the night of the accident, it slued sideways. Only this cop did not proceed to ram it as the truck had done to Ruth, and there was no utility pole for it to slam into.
    That particular classic maneuver by a police chase car is learned by law enforcement officers on the job. Could an amateur, someone not experienced with it, have done it? Ike guessed not. Whoever smacked Ruth’s car that night knew what he was doing. That implied he or she had been, or still served, in a law enforcement capacity somewhere.
    What had Charlie said last night?
    “How about hurting you? Had you thought of that?”
    Could he have misunderstood the message? Who would want him out of the way, and why? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Chapter Eight
    Karl Hedrick and Sam Ryder would be at work, and what Ike needed to ask of them was best left off a government-monitored phone line. He sipped the lukewarm coffee and made a face. Too late to call them, too early to go to the hospital. He stood and