Access to Power by Robert Ellis Read Free Book Online

disturb the scene. Then she dug her small gloved hands into the kid’s pockets and emptied the contents into a plastic evidence bag.
    “He’s not carrying any ID,” she said. “Just credit cards and cash.”
    She stood up, backing away from the corpse as cautiously as she had approached it and handing the bag to Randolph.
    Frank moved closer, leaning over the detective’s shoulder as he held his flashlight to the bag. He saw Woody’s name on the credit cards and knew that Randolph was counting the cash. After a moment, Randolph turned to him, his voice not much more than a whisper.
    “Looks like your partner got his man.”
    “Yeah,” Grimes added loudly. “Right in the back.”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 12
     
     
    Ozzie Olson, former candidate for the U.S. Senate, took another long swig from the bottle and tried to get a grip on things.
    He’d heard the story on the radio and parked just across the street. But making out faces through the rain and all those flashing lights was giving him the willies. He tried to shake it off and opened the window. Two figures were wheeling a body out on a gurney and lifting it into the coroner’s van. Then Frank Miles stepped outside, alive and kicking. He was with two men dressed in suits and raincoats. Detectives, Olson figured, getting into an unmarked car and driving off.
    The bottle dropped onto the passenger seat, flooding the cushion with whisky. Olson snatched it up and guzzled another big pull. When he came up for air, he capped the bottle and tossed it under the seat.
    His head was spinning. He knew that it was Woody Darrow zipped up in that body bag and that there had been a major screw up. Olson wanted to get home. He needed to find out what had happened. What the hell went wrong.
    He started the engine and grabbed hold of the wheel. The view out the windshield ran together like a bad watercolor painting until he remembered the wipers. Switching them on, he tried not to look at them pivoting back and forth as he eased the pickup away from the curb.
    What the hell happened?
    He took a deep breath, keeping his eyes on the road ahead and trying to imagine a straight line. As the pickup gained speed and began to tack like a sailboat, he lost his balance and slowed down some.
    There was a cop at the corner, directing traffic in a bright yellow rain slicker that vibrated like a warning light on the dash. Olson knew that the cop was looking at him, staring at him. He pulled forward, the pickup swaying in the rough seas and wind. When the cop began shouting at him and knocked on the driver’s side window, he didn’t know what the fuck to do. He was over his limit. He was gassed.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 13
     
     
    As Randolph and Grimes drove him down to the station in a car that rattled and shook and reeked of spent cigarettes, Frank wiped the steam off the window and looked out at the empty sidewalks and the rain spilling over the curb.
    His mind was drifting. He could see what had happened that night as if he’d actually been there. Woody at his desk, grinding out scripts, frantically searching for the message that would save his clients even though they couldn’t raise enough money for any message to save them. Then the kid broke in and shot Woody, and somehow Woody shot back.
    Woody.
    Frank looked up front at Randolph guiding the car through the storm. Grimes sat beside his partner staring out the windshield. No one spoke, the only sound coming from the rain pounding on the roof like a steal drum. When they hit a deep pothole, rode out the bounce and both detectives remained silent, Frank wondered if they were thinking about the seventeen dollars and twenty-three cents Woody had died for. Probably not. This was their life. Their everyday. He guessed that they were immune.
    Randolph pulled into the lot and they got out of the car.
    The Metropolitan Police Department was still open for business. The lobby, busy like Union Station at rush hour. Frank hadn’t expected