F Train by Richard Hilary Weber Read Free Book Online Page B

the coffin and began praying, then stopped abruptly, squinting at the open coffin before looking around and realizing she’d wandered into the wrong wake and was caught up in mourning for a total stranger.
    Throughout this brief farce, John James Reilly’s widow remained rigid, still as a statue, not looking at Flo or at the coffin, but somewhere off into an unfocused middle distance, into a future alone, only her and the kids.
    “Mrs. Reilly, we want to say how sorry we are and pay our respects.”
    “That’s all?”
    The widow didn’t give Flo a glance.
    “I’d like to talk with you alone, Mrs. Reilly.”
    “Sure, why not? Come and see me, it’s your job. You want to know about the bitch he was with, right?”
    For a moment, Flo was taken aback. “We have several things to discuss, Mrs. Reilly.”
    “It’s all about the bitch, I’ll guarantee you that much right now. Come to the house, okay, not here. The kids are at my father’s place. I don’t want them hearing anything. They’re in enough pain. Someone from the Bureau coming, too?”
    “No, just me.”
    “Those shits. They’ll be around eventually. They covered up for him long enough.”
    Flo was unable to reply. Only instinct and habit moved her to the coffin to say a prayer. She knelt beside Frank and Marty and glanced down at John James Reilly, first at his face—good-looking, fair, still youthful even in death, eyelids closed, no sign of violence—and his hands folded over a rosary. On his left ring finger, a gold band.
    “Better leave now,” Flo whispered to Frank.
    Then, back outside in the car with her colleagues: “I’m on my way to her house. Put people on her, Marty, around the clock.”
    “His wife? Think she’s in on it?”
    “I wouldn’t have thought so. But seems she’s kind of got a motive of sorts.”
    11 A.M.
    Bay Ridge, Brooklyn…
    A three-story, two-family brick house. Arlene Reilly stood in the doorway, quiet and expectant as Flo Ott mounted the stoop up to the family’s apartment.
    Similar two-family brick homes lined the block. A pair of plainclothes police watched Arlene Reilly from a car parked in midblock.
    Facing the street in Reilly’s living room were two windows, in each frame a second set of aluminum storm windows.
    “John James installed these storm windows every year on All Saints Day, always in time for winter. Even this winter, when he was so goddamn busy.”
    Despite the widow’s hurt and angry tone, Flo sensed coziness in the Reilly home. Several bookcases lined the hall and living room, the shelves heavy with volumes. Three leather easy chairs, a dark brown leather couch, an old oak coffee table, all well worn, a domain for children as well as adults. Through an open door, Flo saw the kitchen and heard the dishwasher humming. The eat-in kitchen overlooked the backyard.
    Observing the homes of killers or victims, Flo never detected a constant. She saw residences high and low, townhouses and tenements, the backseats of cars and cramped trailers. A writer whose specialty was interviewing imprisoned murderers told her the only personal common denominator he observed in all killers was that every killer sported at least one tattoo, but that writer only interviewed men.
    As she sat on the couch in Arlene Reilly’s apartment, Flo’s doubts about vengeance persisted. Still, there was no denying the anger in the widow’s bloodshot eyes, no matter how drained and weary her face. Arlene Reilly was righteously pissed off.
    “Like a coffee, Lieutenant?”
    “That’s okay, I don’t want to—”
    “No trouble.” Arlene Reilly seemed to welcome an opportunity to delay conversation. “Anyway I’d rather sit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind the dishwasher.”
    They sat at the kitchen table and she poured two cups of coffee. Flo said nothing, waiting for the widow to unload her burden.
    Arlene Reilly looked at Flo over her coffee cup rim. “I’ll just have to try and get used to him being dead. The way