Death Notice by Todd Ritter Read Free Book Online Page B

journalism school under his belt. It was enough for the
Gazette,
which hired him as a reporter, and it seemed to be enough for Martin himself.
    “You got a minute, Chief?” he asked. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about George Winnick.”
    “The investigation is still ongoing,” Kat said. “So I don’t have much information to give. When I have something, I’ll tell you.”
    Her statement—or lack of one—didn’t deter the reporter. Whipping a pen and small notebook out of his shirt pocket, he asked, “Was George murdered?”
    The answer was yes. George didn’t sew his own mouth shut before he died. Nor did he deposit his corpse on the side of the road. Yet she wasn’t going to tell Martin that until there was an official cause of death.
    “I don’t know yet,” she said. “We’ll have a better picture after the autopsy is conducted.”
    “Is it true he was found in a homemade coffin?”
    Unfortunately, Kat couldn’t lie about that. A truck driver saw it. So did several dozen cops.
    “It was a wooden box, not a coffin,” she said, not even convincing herself.
    She expected Martin to bring up the premature death notice that had been faxed to his own newsroom. When he didn’t, Kat realized Henry Goll was telling the truth. He hadn’t informed anyone at the
Gazette
about it.
    Thinking about the obituary writer created a question of her own, which she immediately posed to Martin.
    “How much do you know about Henry Goll?”
    Martin gave her a sly smile. “You’re the second person to ask me that today.”
    “Who was the first?”
    “My sister,” he replied. “She said he had a cute phone voice and wanted to know if the rest of him matched it.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “Yes, but only if his voice cracked.”
    Kat frowned at his cruel reference to Henry’s scar. Martin noticed and quickly apologized.
    “That was mean of me. The guy can’t help how he looks.”
    “Do you know what happened to him?”
    Martin shook his head. “No idea. Henry Goll is pretty much a closed book.”
    “I thought that was the case,” Kat said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get moving.”
    She shifted the Crown Vic into gear and started to slowly pull away. Martin followed next to the open window, keeping pace with the car.
    “Come on, Chief,” he begged. “I have to file a story by seven and I have nothing to go on.”
    “I have nothing to tell you. I wish I knew more.”
    Martin had fallen behind. He was now beside the patrolcar’s back window, but Kat could still hear him call out, “Are there any suspects?”
    Kat called back: “We’re looking at all possibilities.”
    Although the reporter tried, he couldn’t keep up anymore. He stopped in the middle of the street and, with labored breath, yelled, “Tell me as soon as you find something!”
    Kat stuck her arm out the still-open window and gave him a thumbs-up sign before speeding up the street. In the rearview mirror, she watched his retreating figure return to the sidewalk, shoulders slumped in disappointment.
    At the end of Main Street, Kat turned onto Old Mill Road, which ran as far as Lake Squall. Perry Mill still stood there, now only a shadow of its former glory. Despite the town’s revitalization, no one had thought to restore the one thing that had led to its formation in the first place. So the mill was left in ruins. Its crumbling outbuildings had collapsed into piles of rotted wood. Its roads became pockmarked with gullies and potholes. Its long dormant railroad tracks vanished into the weeds.
    All that remained of the compound was the mill building itself, a formidable structure that measured seven stories from base to rooftop. It hovered over the trees in the distance, the muted sun slipping behind its angled roof. At one point, hundreds of people worked there. Now it was a ghost from the past, shrouded in the fog that rose off the lake.
    Although Kat had never stepped foot inside the mill, it had haunted her