Stuff to Spy For by Don Bruns Read Free Book Online

hunched overhis shot and beer. The bartender stood behind his vinyl bar and wiped the counter with a towel. I squinted in the dim light and could make out five tables and five booths. A neon beer sign hung above one booth advertising Strohs beer, and I was pretty sure that beer wasn’t even made any more.
    There was no sign of Carol Conroy.
    “Skip Moore?”
    I spun around and could make out the shadow of her face and figure. Tiny, about five foot, and dark brown hair freely framing her pretty face. She looked all of twenty-five years old. I hadn’t uttered a word.
    “Are you Mr. Moore?”
    “Um, yeah.” How lame.
    “I’m Carol Conroy. I called you and—”
    “I know.”
    “There’s a booth over there.”
    She fully expected to meet here and tell her story right here. I’d expected to go to someplace a little more upscale. We walked to the booth and sat.
    “Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light.” The rotund, balding bartender looked around the room, never making eye contact, bored with the entire process.
    We ordered two Bud Lights, and I waited. Mrs. Conroy played with the napkin the bartender had placed in front of her, folding it, unfolding it, and occasionally looking up at me. The bartender finally brought the beers, a smart-aleck smile on his pudgy face. I’m sure he thought we were two illicit lovers, before or after a session at a cheap hotel. This certainly wasn’t a place for business meetings.
    “You’re in the security business.”
    “I am.” I took a long swallow of beer. Warm and definitely past its prime.
    “You’re setting up a security system for my father’s company?”She’d pulled a yellow pencil from her purse and was tapping the eraser on the table.
    “We’ll be installing a complete security system for Synco Systems. State-of-the-art motion detectors, smoke detectors, door monitors, window monitors—”
    “Mr. Moore—”
    “Please, call me Skip.” I took another sip from the bottle. It wasn’t as bad this time. By the end of the bottle it would be just fine.
    She paused for a moment, considering my request. “I can’t do that. Calling you Skip is just a little too informal. Mr. Moore, you know that my husband is president of Synco Systems.”
    “Yes ma’am.” So it was Mrs. Conroy and Mr. Moore. Very businesslike.
    “And Ralph Walters was vice president of operations, in line to take over the company if something should happen to my husband.”
    I wanted her to get to the point. I seriously didn’t care about the hierarchy of her company. She was like Em. A rich bitch who already had hers, and probably didn’t get that I was way down the pecking order. But I quietly waited. I was in line to make over twenty grand, and if it meant dealing with these people for a couple more days, I could do it. I could do anything, almost anything, for twenty grand.
    “Mr. Moore, I talked to Ralph Walters’s wife.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “His widow.” Another long pause.
    “And—”
    Mrs. Conroy pointed the tip of her pencil at me like the barrel of a gun. “And she is convinced that her husband’s death was not a suicide.”
    It was my turn to pause. I’d been first on the scene, and when a man has a gun in his hand, and his brains are spattered over his desk, I didn’t know what else to call it but suicide.
    “Did you hear me?”
    I took another swallow of beer and saw she hadn’t touched hers. “Yes ma’am. Ma’am, I was there.”
    “I know.”
    “It certainly appeared to be a suicide.”
    She paused, giving me a long look. “Mr. Moore, are you a detective?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Have you witnessed a suicide before?”
    “Um, no.”
    Carol Conroy pursed her lips and shook her head.
    “Maria Walters doesn’t think it was a suicide, and neither do I.”
    I finished my beer. “Why are you telling me this?”
    “Because you’re in security.”
    I looked into her brown eyes. “Mrs. Conroy, as you just pointed out, I’m not a policeman.