The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed by Charles Runyon Read Free Book Online Page A

he should stop seeing her?
    That’s what I meant.
    What did Frankie say?
    For me to worry about myself. He’d take care of Anne.
    What do you think he meant?
    The defense objected that Sandy’s opinions were irrelevant, and the judge sustained it. In cross-examination, Sandy admitted that to the best of her knowledge Frankie and Anne were on intimate terms and hadn’t quarreled.
    Since the trial, Sandy had acquired a husband named George Bennett, four children, and fifty pounds of fat which trembled as she walked. She still talked about the murder and hinted that she hadn’t told all she knew, but nobody listened to her any more.
    I watched the two of them together: slim Gabrielle and dumpy, dowdy Sandy with a baby on her hip, haunches rolling, like a plow horse mistakenly teamed with a show horse. The pair sat on a bench in the sun; Sandy dumped a large gray breast from her dress, shoved it into the baby’s mouth, covered it with her sweater, and talked. I knew she was babbling about the murder because that’s all she ever talked about….
    A blue Mercury rolled past with the words FRANKLIN COUNTY SHERIFF painted on its door. It parked in front of the building where Lou had his hardware store and real estate office. Sheriff Glen Wade went in wearing his.38 in a button-down holster on his belt. The visit wasn’t unusual; Lou was a leading citizen and president of the Lions Club; it was an election year and Lou was supporting the sheriff. Still, I had a feeling it concerned Curt Friedland. I’d seen Lou leave town a half hour before with a load of doorframes and roofing—destined for Curt’s house, I was sure—so I wasn’t surprised when the sheriff came into the store.
    “Hello, Velda,” he said. “Know where I could find Lou?”
    “I sure don’t, Sheriff.” The lie surprised me; I thought I’d outgrown the Brushcreeker’s inborn antagonism toward the law.
    The sheriff made a show of examining the display of stainless-steel razor blades. It had been over twenty-five years since I’d watched him kill the man in the street, but I could never forget that he wore death on his hip. He couldn’t have been more than thirty then; even now he retained the blunt, beefy good looks of an aging athlete who keeps in shape.
    Finally he spoke in a blurred baritone: “I hear Lou sold the old Friedland place.”
    The sheriff had small gray eyes; you looked in and it left you sort of empty, as though you’d failed to locate a person inside. I forced down an impulse to lie. “So he said.”
    “The boy bought it outright, they say.”
    “That’s what Lou says.”
    The sheriff pulled at his belt and shifted his weight to the other foot. “I don’t get over to this end of the county much. Don’t need to these days. Brush Creek’s kind of farmed out and the troublemakers have left. People like your husband keep things in line. But a sheriff isn’t worth his salt if he can’t smell trouble in the wind, isn’t that right?”
    “That’s right, Sheriff.”
    The sheriff looked relieved. “What I was wondering, have you heard any rumors that might concern law enforcement?”
    Something seemed to rip the words out of my mouth. “I heard that Bernice Struble was murdered.”
    The sheriff looked pained. “Now, Velda, you know that ain’t true.”
    I shrugged and said nothing, watching his face turn hard and heavy. I could almost see his massive strength bunching beneath his light-blue gabardine jacket. Finally he gave a short decisive nod.
    “Think I’d better check up on that rumor. See you later, Velda.”
    I watched him get in his car and drive off toward Franklin. That puzzled me because I’d gotten the idea he was going after Curt. Then I remembered that he never went into the Nation alone, just as city policemen never patrolled tough neighborhoods alone. He’d gone to get his deputy.
    I glanced over in the park. Gaby and Sandy were gone. I couldn’t see Curt’s car anywhere around the square. I tried to