Dead Man Falls by Paula Boyd Read Free Book Online Page B

so-not-you formal crap, and tell me what’s going on."
    "We’ve had a murder, Jolene," he said, adding condescension to his officiousness. "That's what's going on."
    "Wow, really? Who knew. Guess that’s why you’re the hot-shot detective, huh?"
    He scowled some more. "This is official police business."
    "Jerry’s not one of your official police," I said rather astutely. "He works in another county, remember? He’s not on duty any more than I am."
    Richard Rankin, big-time detective, didn’t bother replying to that one. He just motioned to Jerry again. "Over here."
    "Fine, whatever."
    Jerry shrugged and followed Rick to a spot by another big cottonwood where they could whisper in private. I watched them, trying to read their lips, but it is a lot harder than you’d think, and I couldn’t make out a single word.
    Rick caught me watching and turned his back to me then made Jerry do the same. With no one looking, I very quietly eased myself across the grass toward them. I heard the words "yearbook" and "pages" just before Rick caught me and clamped his lips together.
    Jerry said, "There’s no point in trying to keep this from her, Rick. Either you tell her or I will."
    My heart fluttered a little then took a dive toward my knee caps. "Tell me what?"
    Rick sighed heavily. "Fine, see for yourself."
    As I followed Rick and Jerry back toward where Calvin had been pulled from the river, I noticed a team of officers had appeared up above the falls, in front of the fire trucks, roping off the area with yellow crime scene tape. I suppose it made sense that the body had to have been planted from the top side of the falls since climbing up the front rocks with a corpse over your shoulder wouldn’t be easy--or practical.
    It did bring up some good questions, however, such as "Was access to the upper area usually restricted or could the public get there at all hours?" Then again, any footprints or tire tracks left up top by the killer would have probably been obliterated by the firefighters and their trucks, not to mention their high-powered hoses.
    We followed Rick into the inner circle of officials and stood above Calvin Holt’s very dead body. Somewhere between my brief tango with panic and the distraction of crime scene logic, I had managed to wall off enough emotion that I could look down at Calvin and pretend to be unaffected--at least temporarily.
    The deceased had put on a few pounds since high school and was now bald except for a ring of gray-brown hair around the lower back of his head. Vaulting down the rocks into the river had done some facial damage--and the bullet hole was kind of distracting--but I still guessed he’d probably been a fairly decent looking man, much better than the younger high school version.
    I also wondered if he’d been a nice guy, if he’d gotten married, had kids, started a computer repair company or maybe sold refrigerators at Sears. I suspected the invisible nerd had turned out far better than anyone in his high school graduating class would have ever guessed. Except that now he’d been murdered.
    Rick knelt beside Calvin Holt and pointed to his hands, which were wrapped together with yellow nylon cord--very much like the roll that the dark-haired kid had tried to give the officer a few minutes ago.
    I snapped my head around to look for the young man and sure enough, there he was, upriver from our little group, still holding his package of bright new rope. Behind him, I thought I caught a glimpse of a blue Hawaiian shirt. Russell?
    The bouncing yellow bag of rope pulled my attention back to the fidgety young man. He had a familiar look about him, as did the woman behind him and the man next to her, and the man next to him, which made me pretty sure I was losing my mind. I couldn’t know every face in the crowd, but darned if it wasn’t looking like I should. The young man’s eyes darted back and forth as he tossed the package--the unopened package--of yellow rope between his