Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) by Kent Keefer Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t feel safe.”
    “Right on that.” He was chewing his second beignet, white
    flecks on his chin, his cheeks redder than his lips. “Seen lots of bad things
    happen in my years down here. Girls alone . . . hell, even a group ain’t that
    safe anymore. And that’s the worst thing could happen to these good folks . . .
    the workin’ folks down here. Like those we was lookin’ at and talkin’ to on the
    way down. This here’s their life, you know? Their life.”
    He motioned around like a Cardinal granting a
    stubby-fingered blessing. “Shore didn’t used to be that way. But now we got all
    this clean government, we got all these, uh, these ethics comin’
    out our, uh . . . comin’ out our ears. And now we got them panhandlers
    botherin’ the tourists, crack heads . . . cheap pimps and their cheap whores,
    workin’ right out on the street. Ten dollars ‘ll getcha anythin . . .
    anythin’!”
    He sucked his teeth.
    “Kin tell ‘em a block away, them crack-heads. Skin hangin’
    on their bones . . . barely hangin’, ribs look like my grannies washboard. Not
    all of ‘em niggers either—”
    She rattled her cup into its saucer. “Listen, I’m sorry
    Sherry.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “I can’t stand that word. It’s wrong. I
    won’t be around talk like that.” She took her sunglasses off and set them
    beside her plate and looked straight into his face. “You’re being good to me,
    good to my son and me. And I want to be nice in return. But, please. Please
    don’t use that word . . . at least not around me.”
    “Well Hon, OK, OK.” He flushed and nodded vigorously, raised
    fleshy palms in surrender. “Sorry ‘bout that. Sorry. Know you’re right . . . my
    girl’s always tellin’ me the same thing.” He sighed contritely. “Guess I been a
    cop in the Easy too long. Like I said before . . . jest a dinosaur.” He gazed
    down the street. “But managin’ things down here used to be a helluva lot
    easier.”
    He squinted into her uncovered eyes. “But, you know, though,
    this crack . . .cain’t understand it—”
    “Me either. Back in Kansas City most of the kids drank beer
    and some of them smoked a little pot, the hippy-types. Mostly it was all pretty
    innocent. But there was nothing to compare with this crack stuff you hear about
    so much down here . . . it’s like another world.”
    As Mary spoke she realized Sherry was guiding the
    conversation in his slow southern way. Despite the error of the racial slur
    sidetrack, he was leading her toward what he wanted to talk about.
    “Know anythin’ about the traffickin’ down here . . . in the
    Easy?” He studied her reaction with one eye, the other was only a folded
    crease. “You know, drug traffickin’?”
    “No . . . nothing . . . I really don’t know anything about
    that.” She dropped her chin into the hand of the elbow resting on the table and
    looked at her companion, she squeezed one of her own eyes shut and teased. “So
    . . . now you’re the cop?”
    He snickered and slid the third of the four rolls over to
    his plate as he talked, furtively, like she might not notice. “Always.” He
    nodded, chuckling softly. “Always. Guess it’s my curse.”
    “You think drugs had something to do with Luis being
    killed?”
    “Well, yeah. Sure.” He answered through a quizzical look,
    still chewing.
    “It’s just like I told those FBI guys, uh, Sherry. I knew
    him from work and from sharing the house. And a little from the other.”
    She looked past him at a silver speck in the sky over the
    earthwork, its contrails marred a denim blue. “But that’s it. I met his family,
    his mother anyway . . . for the first time at the funeral. Some of his sisters
    and one of his brothers stopped by now and then like I told that Ruggle guy.
    But I guess when you think about it I really didn’t know too much about him.”
    She kept her eyes on the plane as she talked and her mind
    formed an image of sweet gentle Luis, sweet