When the Killing Starts by Ted Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

when a short middle-aged man came into the office. He was wearing a dark gray suit and a fine sheen of perspiration. He mopped his face with a handkerchief and waited for me to finish the call I was making.
    "You're Reid Bennett?"
    I stood up. "Right, you're the private detective?" He put his handkerchief away and stuck out his hand, smiling ingratiatingly. "Sam Broadhurst. Yes."
    "Okay. Mrs. Michaels asked me to help you look for her kid. I've found the people who signed him up. One of them is downstairs under arrest. When I'm through here, I'm going to latch on to him when he's released on bail, try to track down the boy."
    "You may be too late," Broadhurst said nervously. "As I was coming in, I saw the justice of the peace leaving. I think the bail hearing's over. And the door of the hearing room was open. It's empty. I'd say he was gone."
    Â 

 

 
    FOUR
    Â 
    Â 
    Broadhurst was right. The hearing had happened, and my man was gone. I swore. Hennessey should have called me when the hearing occurred. I wasn't sure whether his failure to do so was an oversight or deliberate punishment for doing police work on his turf. It made no difference either way. Wallace had slipped through the cracks. My work had been for nothing. Only now the mercenaries knew me and would avoid me even more carefully.
    I did the only thing possible. I reclaimed Wallace's knife and gave it to Sam to sniff. He led me out onto the street and along a half block before coming to a dead end at the edge of the roadway. Wallace had gone off in a car, a cab probably.
    Broadhurst suggested that he contact all the cab companies to see if any of the drivers had picked Wallace up. There wasn't anything better to do, so I turned him loose. I didn't hold out any hope. A man like Wallace would change cabs at least once before reaching his destination. Most likely he would switch to the subway for the last lap. I'd lost him.
    I returned the knife to the detectives, got into my own car, and drove Sam over to the hotel Wallace had given as his Toronto address. Too late, of course. He had checked out that morning. The clerk let me see his room, but it was empty. He hadn't left any indication of where he was heading. Smart, just like Dunphy.
    By now it was midnight, and I drove back up Yonge Street to Fred's apartment. The strip was busy, as always. At its worst it's like the least scrungy part of Forty-second Street in New York. There are all kinds of girlie shows, but the Toronto Morality Squad keeps an eye on things, and the pictures of the girls displayed outside are eight-by-ten glossies, not posters. But the people are the same creepy bunch you get in districts like this everywhere, pimps, punkers, a few hookers, and a crowd of shiny-faced tourists. I kept my eyes open for Wallace but didn't see him. It was a long shot, anyway. He'd probably rejoined Dunphy and they were making plans to leave town.
    I got back to Fred's place at midnight and parked on the street, putting a Murphy's Harbour police summons card in the windshield. So far it had kept me clear of parking tickets.
    I walked around the block in the midnight warmth, giving Sam a chance to stretch his legs before we went up to our cell. A few people were sitting on the front stoops of their houses, talking softly, laughing. I heard the clink of glasses and at one point whiffed the familiar smell of grass. Maybe it helped the smokers forget the concrete around them, let them imagine they were out somewhere peaceful, like Murphy's Harbour.
    The apartment was warm, and I didn't fancy sleeping alone in Fred's bed, so I took the cushions off the couch and a blanket outside onto the balcony. From there I could see the sky, and in the quiet that slowly settled over the city it was possible to forget where I was.
    I woke early and dressed for a run. Sam came with me, and we clipped through the sleeping streets for most of an hour. Then I showered and reheated what was left of my hash, frying up a couple