The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski Read Free Book Online Page B

tools
.
    “There’s something you need to see, Mrs. Hunter.”

12:25  a.m.
    Sheraton, Room 702
     
    T hey sat on the couch in the upper level of the room, three steps up from the bedroom pit. It was a soft couch, decorated in a bland pattern of light tans and browns. Look at it too long and you’d fall asleep. That was the point, in a hotel like this. Spend most of your time unconscious. Then pay us and head back home. Jack sat on one end, while Kelly sat on the other. She removed her shoes and put her bare feet up on the couch, mere inches away from Jack.
    “Okay, let’s get to it. First, I have to tell you why I selected you.”
    “So this wasn’t random.”
    “Hardly. Had you picked out on the plane from Houston. I was sitting two rows behind. I can’t blame you for not noticing me. You walked to the bathroom in the rear of the place only once, but the plane was rocking a bit. You fought hard to keep your balance. Remember?”
    It was true. Jack damn near sprayed his own pants in the rest room, with all the turbulence.
    “I heard you talking to the guy in the next seat. He was a lawyer, and you told him you were a journalist. Were you telling the truth?”
    “Yeah, I’m a reporter. I work for a weekly newspaper in Chicago. You know, if this is about a story pitch, you could have explained this to me. We could have set up interviews on tape, on the record. I
could
have helped you, whatever kind of trouble you’re in. Why did you do all of this?”
    “Because without you, I’d be dead.”
    “Oh.”
    Jack paused.
    “What does that
mean}
”
    “I mean that literally. If I don’t have someone within ten feet of me at all times, I’ll die.”

12:28  a.m.
    Basement, Edison Avenue
     
    T ool time. Kowalski found oversized Glad freezer bags in a kitchen drawer; the Hunters liked to freeze large slabs of meat. Inside their 20.3-cubic-foot Frigidaire freezer chest, he founds whole chickens, legs of lamb, pork chops, flank steaks, you name it. They probably belonged to a warehouse shoppers’ club. Kowalski wondered if Katie would have tried to talk him into something like that—something that went against his longtime ethos of spare, frugal living. Then again, with a baby on the way, it would have been different. Hard to scrounge a diaper at the last minute. You needed stacks of those on hand. Or so he’d heard.
    Stop that shit. Get the head, get out.
    The freezer bags were the perfect size for a human head.
    Down in the basement, Kowalski had his pick of gym bags in a cedar closet. He chose the blandest and sturdiest: a small Adidas Diablo duffel with an easy-access U-shaped opening at the top.
    In a cabinet beneath a worktable, Kowalski found a cheap but usable hacksaw. The blade looked like it had never been used.
    He’d hoped for a power tool of some sort, but nothing doing. Ed wasn’t into home repair, obviously.
    Kowalski’s arm was going to be sore later. He just knew it.
    As for destroying the house—and what a shame; it was a nice house, with hardwood floors and a kidney bean-shaped pool out back, complete with hot tub, surrounded by pine trees—that was easy enough. It was a stand-alone, so no neighbors to worry about. The explosion could be devastating, and it would stay limited to these grounds.
    He’d use his favorite: the timed-spark gas-line burst. Enough accelerant spread around here and there, the structure would be obliterated within minutes. As would most forensics. Not that it mattered; nothing here could be tied to Kowalski. He was an investigatory dead end. A ghost.
    As Kowalski walked upstairs, he thought about Claudia Hunter and how she’d fought her own death. She’d so desperately wanted to live. And for a strange moment, Kowalski found himself weak. Did Katie fight like this, at the very end? he wondered.
    He looked at framed photos of Ed and Claudia. She was the strong one, no doubt about it. Ed looked vaguely uncomfortable in every shot, as if he were thinking, Do I