Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle by Rob Cornell Read Free Book Online Page A

friend of mind—was killed in a trap meant for me. I didn’t want to consider one of them had decided to use Eddie’s case as a quick buck. Most of the guys working back then were probably retired by now. Could one of them have decided their pension wouldn’t provide the cozy living he wanted for his golden years?
    Farfetched, but you had to go where the facts took you. “No one else? You’re certain?”
    “No one. I hadn’t even thought about that sticker until you questioned me yesterday.” He picked at the table, gaze askew. “I’ve been thinking. Why would anyone con me? I don’t have anything to give. I’m broke. I can barely pay my water bill.”
    The whole grifter angle had crowded my mind—after all, if I had a con man, shouldn’t everybody?—I had overlooked that one obvious detail. “Maybe he’s not after money.”
    “What else could he possibly want?”
    “You’d have to tell me. Anything you’ve held back, or didn’t think to tell me because you didn’t think it was important at the time?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing.”
    I leaned back and digested this, glancing at my coffee, which had stopped steaming. The gurgle of the coffee maker refilling its tank of preheated water sounded like a growling stomach. Or maybe that was my stomach, asking for breakfast. “What did the guy say when he called back?”
    “He said if I had any doubts he was who he said he was I should think about the sticker.”
    “What else?”
    “That’s it. He hung up on me.”
    I wrapped a hand around my coffee mug. The ceramic had already turned cool. I pushed the cup away. “I don’t know what to think.”
    “Isn’t it obvious,” Eddie said. “He’s telling the truth. He killed my family.”

    I told Eddie I needed time to process this new turn, saw him out, then went up to my bedroom to my computer and pulled up my internet browser—I told you I was weird about using other rooms in the house.
    The idea of heading out to the library in the middle of a snowstorm did not appeal. The internet would have to do. I logged into the library’s periodical database, but discovered what I’d expected. Most of the articles from twenty years ago weren’t available digitally. I tried another tactic, surfing over to the Tribune’s website and accessing their archives. Again I hit the same dead end. The online archive only went back three years. I could have called the paper and asked if they could rifle through their on-site archives for the stories I was looking for. Unlike the PIs on TV, I didn’t have a special source at the paper. Calling up and asking a stranger if they could go through all the articles pertaining to the Arndt murder/suicide to look for any mention of a torn sticker…well, they would think I’m even more nuts than I actually was.
    Faced with the ugly reality that I’d have to slough through the snow if I wanted to get anywhere, I bundled up and headed out.

    I looked for two things while scanning the same articles I had the day before. First, any information about next of kin, friends of the family, reporters that seemed to have more information than others—anyone who might have had a connection to Eddie back then that, if I were a grifter, I could target for more information. I also looked for any mention of that sticker. An insignificant detail to the cops, but it might provide the dramatic flair to a reporter’s narrative about poor Eddie Arndt, the victim of the hour, who they would all forget about after a few news cycles.
    The only thing I found mentioned Eddie’s grandmother, who had taken Eddie in after the tragedy. No stickers, though. Grandma was family, though. She would have spent time in the house, possibly noticed the ripped sticker. In this biz, you take what you can get.
    Alas, it didn’t take me long to find her obituary in an issue of the Tribune from six years ago. She died at age 79. Not as long as some grandmas these days, but not exactly a short life. The