The Walking by Bentley Little Read Free Book Online Page A

figured it'd be better if you were at the scene and could oversee what the cops were doing rather than simply read about it afterward and look at pictures."
    At this, two of the nearest policemen turned toward them.
    Graham ignored the hostile stares. "I need to know if it was someone from or someone hired by Thompson."
    Miles turned back toward the body. Montgomery Jones was supposed to have met Graham at Jerry's Famous Deli in the Valley to go over their strategy before heading over to a deposition session with Thompson's lawyers. Miles had managed to dig up some pretty good statistical dirt on the company's minority hiring practices, as well as a rather incriminating quote from Thompson's CEO, and Graham had been excited about his client's chances for a settlement and was anxious to discuss it with him.. Only Montgomery had never shown.
    His body had been found, two hours later, here, in the old carriage house near the Whittier Narrows dam.
    "I have no legal status here," Miles pointed out. ]hey told me to stay behind the tape, and I have to---"
    "I know that," Graham snapped. "Don't talk to me about 'legal status."
    "'
    Miles raised an eyebrow.
    "I'm sorry," the lawyer apologized. "It's just ... It's a stressful situation. I know you can't go conducting a private investigation of your own. You weren't even hired by him or technically working for him. You're working for me. But
    I was hired by him, and I mean to see that his killer is brought to justice."
    'he cops seem to be doing a thorough job."
    "I just wanted you as a witness in case they weren't. I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to handle this, and I want to make sure all my bases are covered from the begining
    It was what he'd figured, d Miles nodded, satisfied. He glanced around the carriage house, at the antique horse carts and livery, at the huge ham like doors. Were the doors open all the time? There didn't seem to be any padlocks or locks of any sort, and the chain-link fence around the Whittier Narrows recreation area had been breached in several places. Anyone could have come in here.
    Thompson Industries could be playing hardball, but somehow Miles didn't think so. Ruthless businessmen they might be, but he didn't think they could afford the public relations nightmare of being associated with a criminal act. Particulary not one this heinous.
    Besides, even if they were into this stuff, they would've been more discreet. Montgomery would not have been so publicly dispatched. He would have just disappeared.
    This wasn't the work of a corporation trying to avoid a lawsuit, this was the work of... of what?
    A monster, was his first thought, but that didn't make any sense. There were no such things as monsters. Still, he could not imagine how this could have been done, how a person or even a gang of people could have physically accomplished this act, and the only image that would come to mind when he looked at Montgomery's torn form was that of an overgrown Frankenstein, a huge, grotesque creature angrily grabbing the man and tearing him in two.
    Goose bumps cascaded down the skin of his arms.
    The two of them stood there for a moment, watching the police at work.
    "You don't think it's connected to Thompson," Graham asked, "do you?"
    Miles looked at him. "Do you?"
    The lawyer shook his head. "I don't know what did this."
    Miles parked his car on the street instead of in the lot, pulling into an empty space in a green twenty-minute zone. He just needed to grab some files and addresses, to rush in and rush out, and he didn't want to waste any more time. The trip out to Whittier had cost half the day, and he had to tie up several loose ends on old cases before getting to the stalking of Marina Lewis' father.
    He got out of the car, walked into the building. He felt tired, and he understood for the first time how cops and lawyers, psychiatrists and doctors became burned out. Death was draining. Between his father and Montgomery Jones, he'd seen