The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

table. Tina reached into her bag. It was black with a white skull and crossbones painted on its side. Her hand emerged holding a file folder with newspaper clippings sticking out from the edges. She blew some hair away from her face, took off her sunglasses, and gave me the once-over.
    “So tell me why you’re interested in Mitch Blaylock,” she said.
    “Oh, I was just curious.”
    “You were just curious?”
    I hadn’t decided on how much to tell her, and I may have been a little flustered by all the hotness. Taking it slow seemed like the right approach. Somewhere, raw hamburger sizzled against the grill.
    “Well, I’m a sports fan and the article said he played professional football, so, well, I don’t know . . .”
    She was twirling her sunglasses on the table, staring at me with bored eyes.
    “How about this? I’ll pay for your lunch if you stop being an asshole.”
    “An asshole?” So no, I wasn’t sweeping her off her feet.
    “Don’t take it personal or anything. I’m just saying, the guy played semi- pro football. That’s like Little League, only you get minimum wage and a kegger after the games. It’s nothing special. You’re lying.”
    “Yeah, maybe,” I said, trying to manage the butterflies in my stomach. The whole encounter had been such a whirlwind that it didn’t fully hit me until that second that Tina might have some useful information about Mitch’s murder.
    “You know something about him,” I said.
    She shrugged, noncommittal, as the waitress labored over with our food. I felt slightly emasculated as she plunked a cherry Coke, a vanilla milk shake, and most of everything else in front of Tina. The waitress left and Tina munched her chili fries, staring out the window.
    “This was probably a mistake,” she said, and I was filled with an intense panic that I would never see her again.
    It was time to dive in. I breathed deep. “Okay, you’re right. I know something about Mitch, too, and you’re gonna want to hear it. But you’ve got to be straight with me. We need to pool our information if we’re going to get anywhere.” She was chewing her burger at the moment, so I added, as definitively as possible, “You go first.”
    I actually sounded pretty tough. It was the most assertive speech I’d ever given, and I’d delivered it to the most attractive woman on the planet. I thought I might puke.
    Tina leaned back against the booth, produced a Marlboro Red from her pocket, and struck her lighter.
    “You don’t mind, right?” Smoke came floating out with her words.
    “Uh, no.”
    “Forgot how crappy this food is.” She tapped at the foil ashtray and contemplated me for a long moment.
    “Something tells me you’re all right,” she said.
    I let the smile bubble up to my face and told her to fire away.
    “Okay, all I know is, that Mitch Blaylock story should have been mine. I answered the call about it, from the sheriff himself. That’s kind of unusual.” My heart did a little up-tick at her mention of the sheriff. I was clinging to the hope that he was more involved than Tim Spencer, and this was good news: he definitely knew about the body before it ended up in the morgue. “The sheriff asked for Art specifically. Art’s been at the paper longer than dirt, and the two of them are pretty tight.”
    “How tight?”
    “I’m gettin’ to that. Anyway, when Art told me why the sheriff called, I figured he was going to send me out to write it up. It’s a nothing story. ‘Man Croaks at Local Dump.’ Sure, it’s tragic, blah. But big deal. You can’t do much with it.”
    She was right—the food was terrible. I pushed my plate away. From across the dining room, the old guys were checking Tina out.
    “That’s exactly the kind of crap assignment Art loves to give me,” she said. “We have a personality conflict, you could say. Or you could just say he’s an ass.”
    The waitress appeared again. She seemed hurt that we hadn’t enjoyed Ray’s handiwork.