Buried Alive by J. A. Kerley Read Free Book Online

with the offset eyes. The call hadn’t made them any friendlier.
    “Let’s start again, Ryder.”
    “Come on, I’m not really a suspect, am I?” I argued. “You just verified that I—”
    “I verified you’re a cop. What I didn’t verify was how you happened to be on the scene of a murder before the locals arrived.”
    “You called me, dammit. My cellphone rang and you gave me coordinates. Asked for help.”
    “That’s a bald-faced lie, Ryder. I never called you.”
    “You have a distinctive voice,” I said, mentally adding
nails on a blackboard.
    She glared at me, angry I wasn’t breaking down and confessing to God-knows-what, then stood with the eyes still hammering hard. I felt the silent pounding as she paced behind my back. She sat across the table, her question bag re-filled.
    “You said the call confused you, Ryder. If so, why didn’t you call back to ask for more information?”
    I was getting irritated. I’d received a cryptic call for help, ran to offer assistance, was being grilled for the effort.
    “You blocked your number. But you know all this, don’t you, Detective Cherry? You’re gaming me for some reason.”
    “I AM NOT GA—” She caught herself and took a couple seconds to compose, tapping clear-polished nails on the desk. I saw anger in one eye, bewilderment in the other, averaged it out into exasperation. “How could I call you without knowing your number, wise guy?” she asked.
    “I’ve told several locals I’m a Mobile detective, gave them my cell number. The people at Compass Point Outfitters. A lady at the service station in Pine Ridge. Dottie Fugate at the cabin-rental company.”
    “So what?”
    “I know how the country grapevine works. One of them called you, said ‘Guess what, there’s a homicide dick vacationing in the area.’”
    She gave me incredulous. “You’re saying when faced with a homicide my first thought was to call the big-city detective?”
    I gave her my most sardonic smile. “You called me, lady. I didn’t call you.”
    She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “If
I
called
you,
why didn’t anyone expect you on the scene, Einstein? You figure that one out?”
    Actually that one bothered me a bit. But I was working on theories. “The cell connection was lousy. You didn’t realize your message got through. When you found me with the body, my face under a bandana, you figured me for the perp.”
    “And not the hotshot hard-on from Mobile.”
    “Your words, not mine,” I said. “But let’s get back to my question: Why are you gaming me?”
    “I am not running a game here, Ryder,” she said slowly, as though explaining something to a child. “I did not call you anonymously because you’re a big-time detective who writes books and all. What I am trying to do is reconcile your story with your actions.”
    Cherry seemed truly convinced she hadn’t called me. I wondered if the woman had two personalities, each with its own line of sight. I decided to bag my confrontational attitude and appeal to her rational side, if there was one. I pulled out my cellphone, thumbed to
Call History.
    “Let’s try a timeline,” I said, holding my phone screen so Cherry could see the info. “There’s my call, at 6.57 a.m.It says
Caller Unknown.
My only call today, the call from, uh, the woman with the distinctive accent. When did you get the message about the body, Detective Cherry?”
    She scrabbled through the papers in front of her, plucked up a sheet. I saw her eyes juggling information. “We received information at six forty.”
    My rational side lost out to my hand slamming the table. “But you people didn’t arrive until almost seven thirty!” I barked. “Ten minutes after I did, even though you were notified before my call. Did you stop for breakfast along the way?”
    Her jaw clenched and she looked away. “Our notification wasn’t by, uh, traditional means. It took some time to, uh, deal with.”
    “The message came by