Free Secret of the Seventh Son by Glenn Cooper

Mueller's hole in the heart, he'd be on his sofa now, watching TV, swigging scotch. He hated him more and more.
    Knuckles were rapping against the front door. Will drew his Glock. "Take him to the bedroom." Nancy wrapped her arm around Clive's waist and hurried him away while Will peeked through the peephole.
    It was a police officer holding a huge paper sack. "I got your ribs," the patrolman called out. "If you don't want 'em, me and the guys'll have 'em."
    The ribs were good--no, great. The three of them sat in a civilized circle around Clive's small dining room table and ate greedily, scooping up sides of mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, sweet corn, rice and beans and collard greens, chewing and swallowing in quiet, the food too delicious to be spoiled by small talk. Clive finished first, then Will, both of them cross-eyed full.
    Nancy kept going for another five minutes, keeping the forkfuls coming. Both men watched with a kind of grudging admiration, politely killing some time by tearing open packets of moist towelettes and fussily cleaning barbecue sauce off each finger.
    In high school Nancy had been petite and athletic. She played second base on the softball team and was a winger in varsity soccer. During her first year away from home she started gaining weight, succumbing to freshman syndrome. She packed on pounds in college, and more in law school, and became positively dumpy. Midway through her second year at Fordham she decided she wanted to join the FBI, but her career advisor told her she'd have to get in shape first. So, with crazed determination, she blitz-dieted and jogged herself down to 120.
    Assignment to the New York Office was a good news/bad news story. The good news: New York. The bad news: New York. Her GS-10 grade carried a base salary of about $38,000 with a Law Enforcement Availability Pay kicker of another $9,500. Where were you going to live in New York making under fifty grand? For her, the answer was back home in White Plains, where she got her old room back bundled with mama's cooking and special bag lunches. She worked long hours and never saw the inside of a gym. In three years her weight steadily escalated again, padding her small frame.
    Will and Clive were watching her like she was a contestant at a hot-dog-eating contest. Mortified, she blushed and laid down her utensils.
    They cleared the table and washed up like a little family. It was nearly ten.
    Will parted the curtains a few inches with his finger. It was inky dark. Tiptoed, he looked straight down and saw two cruisers at the curb, where they were supposed to be. He let the curtains close and checked the dead bolt on the front door. How determined was this killer? With a police cordon, what would his move be? Would he back off and accept defeat? After all, he'd already murdered an old lady less than twenty-four hours ago. Serial killers weren't typically high-energy types but this guy was killing in bunches. Would he come crashing through the wall of the adjacent apartment? Rappel down from the roof and blast through a window? Blow up the whole damn building to get his victim? Will didn't have a feel for the perp but he was an outlier and the lack of predictability made him very uneasy.
    Clive was back in his favorite chair trying to convince himself that time was his friend. He was bonding with Nancy, who seemed entranced by the slow precise cadence of his voice. The two of them were talking about music. It sounded to Will like she knew a fair bit about that subject too.
    "You're kidding," she said. "You played with Miles?"
    "Oh yeah, I played with them all. I played with Herbie, I played with Dizzy and Sonny and Ornette. I been blessed."
    "Who was your favorite?"
    "Well, that would have to be Miles, young lady. Not necessarily as a human being, if you know what I'm sayin', but as a musician, my my! That was not a trumpet in his hands, that was a horn he got straight from God. Oh no, that weren't no mortal thing. He didn't make