Freeze Frame by B. David Warner Read Free Book Online Page B

know him?
    I didn’t, but some of the people I work with
did. And later today we heard that one of our producers here at A
& B was found dead.
    Are you sure you’re okay? I worry about you,
Kitten.
    I’ll be fine, Dad. I’m all grown up now.
    Watch your step. Anything can happen in a big
city.
    I’ll be careful.
    Have you seen Ken Cunningham?
    Seen him? He’s all over the place. He sends
his regards, by the way.
    Tell him I said hello. And get some sleep
Kit. You sound tired.
    I am Dad. I love you. And give my love to
Melanie. I’ll call soon.
    I love you Kit. Goodnight.
    20
    Tuesday, Oct. 12 8:45 a.m.
    I arrived at Adams & Benson surprised to
find my former husband in the parking lot. Between the non-descript
brown suit he wore and the non-descript blue Ford Taurus he emerged
from, you’d have him pegged him as a cop from across the River. He
saw me and nodded.
    “What brings you back to Adams & Benson?”
I asked.
    “How well do you know a guy by the name of
Sean Higgins?” Garry hadn’t changed. He considered small talk
something midgets engaged in.
    “I met him yesterday. Why?”
    “A couple people say Higgins and Cato were
oil and water.”
    “So what? I thought the official report of
Cato’s death said suicide.”
    “We’re treating it like homicide. The guy had
plans with his girl friend for that evening,” Garry said. “Not your
typical suicide candidate. And he had sunglasses on when they found
the body.”
    “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “Whoever killed him had a weird sense of
humor. Sunglasses wouldn’t have stayed on if he’d been thrashing at
the end of a rope. The ME rushed through the autopsy and guess
what? Cato died of a heart attack.”
    “From hanging?”
    “He was dead before the rope touched his
neck.”
    “But a heart attack...”
    “There are poisons that can cause heart
failure. The ME’s looking into it.”
    “What makes Higgins a suspect?”
    “They didn’t get along, for one thing. And
wasn’t Higgins a football player?”
    “He played for the University of
Michigan.”
    “Cato wasn’t exactly a lightweight. Whoever
strung up his body after he died had to be strong.”
     
    ***
     
    When I got to my desk, a voice mail message
said Higgins wanted to see me. I found him in his office, typing
away at his computer with all the skill and dexterity two fingers
could manage.
    He kept his eyes on the keyboard as he spoke.
“Welcome back to the big time. I hear you built quite a reputation
here five years ago. Then ran away.”
    “It was more walk than run. I had to get away
from Detroit for a while.”
    “I saw you talking to that cop down in the
parking lot. Any more news on Cato?” Apparently Higgins shared
Kaminski’s distaste for chit-chat.
    “That cop is my former husband; the reason I
had to get away from Detroit. He says Cato’s death was murder, not
suicide.”
    “Murder, huh? I thought they found him
hanged.”
    “Yeah. Wearing sunglasses. The police figure
they would’ve fallen off if he’d actually hanged himself. But the
clincher is, the Medical Examiner’s report says he died of a heart
attack. Someone strung him up to make it look like suicide.”
    Higgins stopped typing and looked up. “Is
that it?”
    “Not quite. He asked if I knew you.”
    “So I’m a suspect?”
    “For what it’s worth, I told him I didn’t
think you did it. But he heard you and Cato didn’t get along.”
    “If I had killed him, they would have found
those sunglasses in his rear end.”
    “The man’s dead. Remind me to nominate you
for the Mr. Sensitivity Award.”
    ***
     
    Higgins apologized. Not for the crass remark,
but for interfering with work on the Ampere. He said we had to
divert at least one team to create an Avion print ad for the first
issue of Self magazine we could make. He gave me the input, and I
called Glo-Jo and Bob Roy.
    They were waiting in my office when I got
there. After passing on Higgins’ apology, I relayed the