Sleeping Dogs by Ed Gorman Read Free Book Online Page A

mine.”
    â€œYou want me to write something for you?” Billy said.
    â€œThanks, Billy. But I’m going to give them so little information we won’t need to write it down.” A sly smile as she said this.
    â€œI’ll stay with Teresa,” Kate said. The two women had always been friendly, something you don’t always see in political relationships. The wife threatened by the beautiful staffer. The staffer gloating over the long hours she got to spend with the candidate alone. But these two women actually hung out together, with Teresa, who could not have children, even frequently babysitting Kate’s daughter.
    â€œSo you won’t need me?” Kate said.
    â€œNo. But maybe R. D. Greaves will.”
    She knew what I meant by that. Billy and Laura were already walking through the door and hadn’t heard me. Gabe stood up, silent as usual.
    â€œOh, yes,” Kate said. “I hope you can find him and pay him a visit.”
    Teresa wasn’t paying us any attention. She was too busy touching Warren’s face with her hand.
    â€œI’ll call you later,” I said to Kate and then went looking for Greaves, though I didn’t get far. In my search for a side exit door, not wanting the press to see me leave, I was approached by a long, lean black man in a tan Burberry and a brown snap-brim fedora. He approached me with his ID in hand and a large public smile in place.
    â€œDetective Richard Sayers. And I believe you’re Dev Conrad.”

    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œI just missed you over at the auditorium. I talked to the campaign manager, Kate. Very nice, bright lady. But I wanted to talk to you, too. See if you had any ideas.”
    â€œI’m not sure what you mean.” But I did know what he meant. He wanted my opinion. He obviously knew there was a possibility that Warren had been drugged.
    â€œI’m looking to see if there’s any criminal angle here. Maybe the senator had a heart attack or a stroke or an aneurysm. But then there’s the possibility that a bad guy slipped something into his drink. That would make this a criminal act. A lot of people thought he was drunk. I imagine that’s just what the bad guy wanted them to think. If there was a bad guy.”
    â€œI can’t disagree with you there.”
    He studied me with dark eyes that held no compassion for anybody unfortunate enough to belong to the human species. “You’re a little rattled right now. And I don’t blame you. But we need to have a sit-down and very soon. You know everybody who was in that makeup room tonight.”
    â€œI don’t like the sound of that. You mean that bad guy is one of the staffers?”
    â€œI’m not saying that. Not yet, anyway. But that’s as good a place to start as any.” He smiled with those big white perfect teeth. “I’ll be seeing you around. You probably need to relax a little right now.”
    He nodded and walked past me, toward the front of the hospital.

CHAPTER 8
    â€œFreshen that up for you, friend?” the bartender asked.
    â€œPlease,” I said.
    As he mixed me another scotch and soda, he said, “Hope you don’t have far to go tonight. That damned snow doesn’t want to quit. I told the wife I might wind up staying here. We’ve got a cot in the back. Of course she thinks I’m hitting on the two waitresses.” He was sixtyish, balding, and saddled with the kind of smile that would remind younger women of uncles and granddads. I doubted his wife had too much to worry about.
    The Parrot Cage lounge sat across the street from a new three-story hotel, a hotel that offered suites pretty much like small apartments for travelers who planned to be in the city awhile. I was here because two of the newspapermen I’d called said that, so far as they knew, Greaves was staying at the hotel and doing a lot of his drinking at the Parrot Cage. I knew he had an