The Moche Warrior by Lyn Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

account to settle with someone,“ ” I replied reluctantly. “It’s an old-fashioned expression, settle an account,” I added, horrified at the direction this conversation was taking, and upset that my report would reflect so badly on him. “Alex is getting on a little, and he’s lived all over the world, and he uses some rather quaint expressions. It means pay a bill. He’s been looking after the finances while my partner is away.”
    “Known Mr. Stewart
long,
have you?” Lewis said, this time very quietly.
    “Long enough,” I retorted. “About four years, long enough to know that he would never hurt a flea.”
    Lewis said nothing. Mancino scribbled furiously.
    “Have you figured out
precisely
what that other person was doing in my store?” I asked, anxiety making me belligerent as I desperately tried to get the investigation back on what I saw to be a more reasonable track. “Did he break in, not realizing Alex was still there? We don’t keep much cash in the shop, just a small float in the safe in the tiny office behind the front desk. Most people pay by credit card these days, so there’s rarely a large amount of money in the shop, but a thief wouldn’t necessarily know that,” I rattled on.
    How had the thief got in? I wondered as I spoke. While the shop was open, perhaps, hiding in the storage room and then surprising Alex? Once the store was closed, both the front and back doors were locked. The back door was always locked: It had a panic bar for ease of exit but locked automatically behind you. It had been locked when I got there, that I knew for certain.
    And the fire? We didn’t keep all that much in the storage room. We had a warehouse several blocks away where we kept the bigger pieces of furniture until there was room on the floor. The storage room contained some of our records, a place for our coats, and some of the smaller decorative items which we kept there to replace objects as they were sold. We didn’t keep anything flammable, and I couldn’t imagine how a fire could have started. Did that mean the fire had been deliberately set? Was the thief trying to cover his tracks? Was he even trying to make sure Alex could never identify him? It was a horrible thought.
    My thoughts turned back to the present, and I found Sergeant Lewis watching me carefully. “So,” I said, “was it a robbery?”‘
    “One possibility,” Lewis said.
    I told him about the security alarm going off three times in the previous week. “I thought they were false alarms, but now I’m not so sure,” I said, pressing on despite his refusal to tell me anything. “Do you think someone was trying to break in then? Was the fire deliberately set?”
    Lewis ignored me. Suddenly he leaned forward.
    “Know
this person?” Lewis asked, taking an eight by ten black-and-white photo out of his briefcase and setting it before me. If he’d wanted to shock me, he was very successful. It was the dead man in the store, photographed in such a way that I could see his face, his hair singed and one cheek burned, a dark ugly line on his neck. I gasped. Lewis waited.
    “No!” I finally blurted out. Technically that was true, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be hooked up to a polygraph at that very moment.
    “Certain?”
    I nodded. There was no question I was being a trifle too literal here. I really didn’t know who the victim was. But I had seen him before. The problem was, every time I opened my mouth, I seemed to implicate Alex: Surely Lewis would never have suspected Alex if I hadn’t said what I had. I determined I would have to be very careful what I said from now on. Volunteering more than was asked for was not a good idea, it seemed.
    “You
know who he is?” I asked, adopting Lewis’s particular style of speech as my own.
    It was his turn to nod. “Then why ask me?” I responded.
    “Turned up in
your
storage room for starters. A little
crispy
have to say, but recognizable. Ever been to Peru?” he asked without