The Moche Warrior by Lyn Hamilton Read Free Book Online

nodded.
    “Sure?”
    “I can’t imagine they would be anyone else’s. The key ring’s a gift from a friend in Mexico. It’s silver, and an unusual design—the Chac Mool from Chichen Itza.”
    I looked over at the puzzled PC Mancino. In seven years of wearing blue, he had not encountered the Maya/Toltec city of Chichen Itza, nor the angry god that guards one of the temples. I spelled both for him. He blushed.
    “Keys all there?”
    “I think so: house, Alex’s place, Moira’s, car, shop door—same key opens the back and the front doors— warehouse, storage room. That’s it. Yes, all there.”
    “Partner out of town, is she?” he asked, taking one of those little mental leaps I found so hard to follow.
    “Yes. She’s gone on a wilderness camping trip in Algonquin Park with her friend and his two sons. She’ll be back tomorrow or the day after.” There I was being imprecise again. He scowled.
    “Business been good lately, has it?”
    “Fine. Yes.”
    “Don’t owe a bit of
money
or anything, do you?”
    “No, as a matter of fact, we’ve actually turned a small profit the last few months.” I could predict the next question, and sure enough, out it came.
    “
Insured
, are you?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    It didn’t take a genius to figure out where he was going with this one: insurance fraud. Maybe that explained why Rod McGarrigle had been so evasive. But it was much worse than that.
    “
Then
what?”
    “Then what, what?” I asked, baffled by all the mental hopping around Lewis was doing.
    He looked at me as if I were of subnormal intelligence and said, “What did you do after you realized you’d left your keys behind?” He clearly resented having to use all those words to get me back on track.
    I told him how I’d gone to the shop, peered in the front door, realized something was wrong and gone round to the back to try to get in.
    “Door
locked
, was it?”
    “Yes. I used a chair to smash the window. Come to think of it, the chair was lying on its side close to the door. It had been knocked over.”
    “Wind?”
    “I don’t think so. It’s wrought iron and pretty heavy.”
    “And then?”
    “I reached through the broken window, pushed the bar, and got the door open, and went over to Alex.”
    “Who was where,
exactly!”
Lewis went on. Clearly my answers were not yet precise enough.
    “Wandering around in a daze,” I replied.
    “His
precise
position?”
    “Near the tan sofa.”
    “Near?”
    “In front of it. A couple of feet, more or less, in front of it.”
    “His appearance,
in detail
?”
    “Dazed, as I said. He had a cut over his left ear, and he was sort of staggering around.”
    Lewis winced. He didn’t like expressions like more or less and sort of, I could tell, but at this moment I was too tired and sore to care.
    “Say anything?”
    “I think I asked him what happened, and then suggested he leave with me,” I replied, misunderstanding the question.
    “He
say anything?” Lewis asked, impatient at my inability to answer the question he was asking.
    “He was babbling really. The only coherent thing he said was something about not being able to go because he had some unfinished work, an account he had to settle.”
    For a second or two both policemen sat motionless, Mancino with his pen poised over his notebook, Lewis looking like the proverbial cat that had swallowed the canary. I looked from one to the other. Knowing Alex, it had simply never occurred to me that there was more than one way of interpreting what he’d said. Lewis, I knew right away, also thought there was only one interpretation, and it was not the same as mine.
    “You can’t think Alex is to blame for this,” I gasped. “He would never do such a thing.”
    “
Exact
words?” Lewis said finally.
    “He was worried he hadn’t got all his work at the shop done!” I exclaimed. “That’s all.”
    “
Exact
words?” Lewis repeated.
    “He said, ”Not finished. Something I have to do. I have an