Supervolcano: Eruption by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

naughty,” Colin said. The San Atanasio PD had gone smokefree the year before. Colin’s father had died of lung cancer, one bad inch at a time. He had his share of bad habits and then some, but cigarettes weren’t one of them.
    “Ah, fuck,” Sanchez said without heat. “I’ll go outside when I’m done bugging you, then. Okay, what’s Huckleberry Tuff? Sounds like a gangbanger who’s read Mark Twain.”
    Colin chuckled. “Kinda does, doesn’t it? But it’s this layer of rock the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park laid down when it went kablooie two million years ago and change. There’s lots of it—I mean lots—in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho.”
    “O-kay.” Whatever Sergeant Sanchez had expected, that wasn’t it. “And how come you give a rat’s ass about this super-watchamacallit?”
    Normally, that would have been an altogether reasonable question. As things stood, though, Colin had a reasonable answer: “ ’Cause this gal I’ve got interested in is studying the supervolcano. Geologist, I guess you’d call her.”
    “Oh. I gotcha.” The medium-brown skin on Sanchez’s hands had a lighter streak on his ring finger that testified to his own recently deceased wedded bliss. Caution—police work may be hazardous to your marriage. They didn’t issue warning labels like that, but they should have. The sergeant leered and laughed a dirty laugh. “Geologist, huh? Long as she gets your rocks off . . .”
    “Har-de-har-har.” Colin had heard that one before, from almost every cop who knew what a geologist was. Before he could say so, his telephone rang. He picked it up. “Ferguson.” He listened for a moment, then seemed to sag in his seat. “Shit,” he said heavily. “Are they sure? What’s the location?” He wrote down an address on the sheet that held the words Huckleberry Tuff , then slammed the handset into the cradle.
    Gabe Sanchez might not make original jokes, but he could sure read between the lines. “Another one from the Strangler?” he asked.
    “Looks that way. Mildred Szymanski, seventy-seven, found dead in her place. Nobody saw her, she didn’t answer her door for three days, and the neighbors finally called us. Bedroom’s a mess—looks like she put up a fight. She’s naked from the waist down.”
    “Jesus.” Sanchez reached for his smokes again. If he had lit up, Colin wouldn’t have said a word. But he jerked his hand away instead. “Mildred. Nobody’s named Mildred any more. Who the fuck gets his jollies raping little old ladies?”
    “This guy does,” Colin answered. “It’s in one of the apartment buildings near San Atanasio Boulevard and Sword Beach Avenue. Wanna come with me?”
    “Sure. We can damn near walk,” Sanchez said. Colin nodded. The scene of the crime was only a few blocks from the cop shop.
    As soon as they got outside, Sanchez did light a Camel. He smoked in quick, furious puffs, and stamped on the half-smoked cigarette when they got into one of the department’s unmarked cars: a Plymouth that had seen better years. It wheezed to life when Colin turned the key.
    The Sunbreeze Apartments had seen better years, too. They’d probably been a cool place to live when they went up in some 1970s real-estate boom. Now they looked more like the Sun-bleached Apartments. Lots of serious armor, added on as things went downhill, secured the entrance and the gateway to the underground parking garage. Two black-and-whites were parked in the no-parking zone out front, their red and blue lights flashing.
    Colin pulled in behind one of the cop cars. A uniformed officer started to wave the Plymouth away, then recognized him. The guy grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that, Lieutenant.”
    “No sweat, Malcolm,” Colin said as he and Gabe Sanchez got out.
    When reporters talked about San Atanasio these days, they called it “working class.” That meant most of the chatter Colin heard from looky-loos was in Spanish. Some was in Tagalog, some in Korean. And