The Sniper's Wife by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page A

sorry to be the one to break the news of your ex-wife’s death. That must have been a shock.”
    Willy kept it short and honest. “Yes, it was.”
    “Had you two kept in touch at all?”
    “No. It wasn’t the friendliest of breakups.” He wondered why he’d volunteered that bit. It was none of Ogden’s business.
    “That’s too bad. Marriage and cops are a tough mix.”
    “You been divorced?”
    The older man looked at him before responding, and Willy realized he’d broken an unstated ground rule. This was not a level playing field, despite the professional courtesy.
    “How long ago was that?” Ogden asked.
    Willy felt himself bristling on the inside, and felt doubly angry. Ever so gently, Ogden was pushing him around. Successfully.
    He tried the same approach of a minute ago. “Like it says in the divorce papers you have: twelve years.”
    Ogden looked solicitous. “I apologize, Detective Kunkle. Is this a sore subject?”
    Normally, Willy would have called the man an asshole and walked out of the room. But that was partly the point of the question. Ogden was taking his measure.
    Willy took a deep breath and admitted, “I was a drunk back then. I hit her once. And that was the end of it. She was right to leave. I was a loser.”
    Ogden shook his head gently. “You’ve quit drinking, you were wounded on duty, and now you’re on a topnotch squad. Could be you’re being a little tough on yourself.”
    It was meant as a compliment, even though it confirmed that Ogden had checked him out. But there was more to Willy’s past than what was available through a computer check and some phone calls. And that gap made Willy think resentfully of Joe Gunther again, the man who’d had more to do with Willy’s upward mobility than he believed he had himself.
    “Could be Vermont’s like a cop version of kindergarten,” he blurted out resentfully. “Doesn’t take a wizard to get ahead. Even a gimpy drunk can do it.”
    Ogden’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes stayed on Willy’s, and Willy felt all the more foolish for his outburst. He wished he could go back outside and at least take a walk around the block to clear his head. Back home, he routinely took people apart during interrogations, while never laying a hand on them. He’d humiliate them, cajole them, embarrass them, almost pummel them with language. And here he was, rising to every bait Ogden put before him, including the ones Ogden wasn’t aware of.
    “What d’you have on Mary’s death?” Willy finally asked, as much to move on as to get an answer.
    Ogden’s face softened. “The ME left a message for me. I got it this morning. They did the autopsy right after you ID’d the body. There’s a detailed final protocol and a tox report that won’t come through for weeks, but absent any signs of criminality there, they’re confirming what we’ve thought all along: apparent heroin overdose.”
    Willy’s jaw tightened. That wasn’t enough for him—a couple of cops poking around, a late-night off-the-cuff one-liner from a medical examiner. It didn’t fit what he’d found at the apartment, or, more importantly, what he’d felt spending the night there. But that wasn’t anything he could admit, nor did he want anyone to know of his misgivings, for fear of being thrown out.
    Still, if he didn’t show at least part of his hand, he’d never get Ogden to do the same with what they’d collected. And that was something Willy really wanted to see.
    “I saw her track marks,” he said, trying to sound purely professional. “Except for the one that killed her, they all looked pretty old.”
    Ogden’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “That’s not too surprising, is it? A lot of addicts overdose because they shoot the same load they did when they were regulars. Only their systems aren’t used to it anymore.”
    That ran against Willy’s professional instinct to always “think dirty.” Even knowing what this man’s workload must be, he found