Forty Thieves by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

in advance when there would be a good day for putting a body in a storm drain. A big rainstorm would also wash away things like footprints and tire tracks and the marks where he’d dragged the body. So it was probably planned.”
    Ronnie said, “Right. The .22 rounds would indicate that he met the victim knowing what he was going to do. A pro might use a .22 because it’s relatively quiet, but the victim is just as dead, if you shoot him in the head or heart. But nobody would bring a .22 to a gunfight. He had to know in advance what to bring.”
    “Yes,” said Sid. “Is ‘he’ a woman?”
    “Maybe,” Ronnie said. “A .22 would be much easier to hide than a bigger pistol on a small body. And a woman could find a way to get in very close.”
    “Other possibilities?”
    “Dozens,” she said. “Maybe he or she posed as a realtor, an architect, or contractor, and said, ‘I’ll drive you around to look at the lots.’ That way there’s no extra car left here to raise questions. Maybe the shooting took place at an even more remote spot, and he just dumped the body at a construction site on his way home. And there’s still the possibility that this was a psycho out plinking at bottles who saw a lone man in a remote place and wondered what it would be like to kill somebody.”
    “And we can’t ignore the fact that Ballantine was black,” said Sid. “It might be too early to rule out racial hatred as a motive.”
    “I guess the only things we can rule out right now are suicide and accident. Neither involves two shots to the back of the head,” Ronnie said.
    She noticed that Sid was staring into the rearview mirror. “What do you see?”
    “I’m not sure. Do you remember about two stops back, there was a car behind us at a distance?”
    “You mean when you were speeding?”
    “Yeah. Just now, a car came by that intersection back there, and stopped. Whoever was in it seemed to be watching us. Then it pulled forward to where I couldn’t see it, but slowly. It looked like the same car. It’s a fairly small sedan, colored somewhere between dark gray and a dusty black.”
    “At the entrance to this street?”
    “Yes. They could have been parking up there just out of sight.”
    “Why would anybody come down here in the dark?”
    “That’s what I’m wondering.” After a moment, he said, “Maybe they’ve been following us all afternoon waiting for a chance to corner us.”
    She looked around. “This doesn’t look like a place I want to be cornered.” She released her seat belt.
    Sid said. “How do you want to do this?”
    “Let’s get out of here, but cautiously. Turn around and head out. Keep our windows open and guns ready, but try to look like a normal couple who were just out looking at a new housing development.” She took out her pistol, released the magazine to verify that it was loaded, reinserted it, and pulled back the pistol’s slide to put a round in the chamber.
    Sid swung the car to the side of the road, backed up, and turned around. He drove back along the unpaved road toward the intersection at a slow speed, as though he had not seen anything that made him suspicious. Ronnie rested her pistol on her knee with her finger straight along the side of the trigger guard.
    Ronnie said, “I’m trying to spot them, but I don’t see anybody yet.”
    “Good.”
    “Do you think they could be guards of some kind?”
    “There’s not much here to guard yet,” said Sid. “If they are, they’ll be satisfied to see us leave, and not bother us. Of course, it could be somebody from an old case, just waiting to get us into a place like this. It could even be Alex Rinosa.”
    “Even if he’s been arrested by now, he wouldn’t know who we are yet.”
    “Not usually, but it could happen.”
    “Thanks for not saying it’s because I took out the ad about a reward for the Ballantine murder,” she said. “Even though it is.”
    Sid drove along the gravel road, staying in the center while