Free The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo Page A

someone else is a dead ringer and knows what went down that night.”
    “Nobody knows what happened,” Jules whispered. “Except us.”
    “The Amish kid,” Brick offered.
    “He didn’t see our faces.” Snipe rubbed the back of his neck.
    “What do we do?” Jules’s eyes searched theirs. “About the notes?”
    “Lock your doors.” Having had his fill of ghost stories and nonsense, Brick scooted from the booth. “And hope she can’t walk through walls.”
    He left without finishing his cognac.

 
    CHAPTER 7
    John Tomasetti left his office in Richfield at just before 3 P.M . and took Interstate 77 north toward Cleveland. He assured himself he wasn’t going to do anything ill-advised. Just a little recon. He liked to know what he was dealing with, after all. A cop could never have too much information, even if he didn’t use it.
    Regardless of his intentions—or lack thereof—he had to be careful. Three years ago, there had been rumors about John Tomasetti. Ugly rumors that after his wife and children were murdered, he’d gone rogue and taken the law into his own hands. Nothing had ever been proved. Cops made the best criminals, after all. Besides, everyone knew that certain kinds of people tended to have a short shelf life. Just because you had a reason to want someone dead didn’t mean you’d done the deed.
    But Tomasetti knew that if anything happened to Joey Ferguson in the coming days or weeks or months, he would be scrutinized. He might as well have the word “motive” tattooed on his forehead. He hadn’t missed the way people looked at him this morning when he’d walked into the office. Some of his coworkers had gone out of their way to say hello and ask him how he was doing. Others had steered clear, as if maybe they were worried he might prove all those rumors true and snap. None of them had had the guts to ask him how he felt about Ferguson’s release.
    Tomasetti wasn’t too worried about it. He had a better handle on the situation this time around. A more solid grip on himself. He’d had three years to deal with his losses, to climb out of that black abyss of grief, and to extinguish the wildfire of rage that had burned him from the inside out. He’d come to terms with the past and learned to accept the unacceptable. He was fine with a capital F, and everyone who mattered knew it. That’s what he told himself as he headed north to a city he’d avoided for the better part of three years.
    He hit traffic on I-90, and by the time he arrived in Bay Village, an upscale suburb west of Cleveland, a lowering sky spit rain against the windshield. He exited at Clague Street, passed the tennis courts and baseball diamond in Reese Park, and headed west on Lake Road. Flanked on both sides by mature trees, the narrow, two-lane street cut through a fashionable residential area with Lake Erie just a few hundred yards to the north. There were older, well-kept bungalows and ranch homes to his left and pretty side streets lined with blue spruce and maples and Bradford pear trees that would be budding in a few weeks. The lakefront lots to his right were long and narrow, as if the developer had tried to squeeze in as many waterfront properties as possible. Many of the older homes on the lake—even those of historical significance—had been torn down and replaced by extravagant mansions with tennis courts and swimming pools and stunning views of the water.
    He’d memorized the street number and slowed upon reaching the two-acre lakefront estate Joey Ferguson had inherited from his parents. Trees obscured the house from full view, but Tomasetti could see that the place was lit up like a football stadium. It looked like Ferguson was celebrating his newfound freedom.
    He drove slowly past. Ten yards from the driveway entrance, a heavy wrought-iron security gate and post-mounted card reader warned off interlopers. He continued west on Lake for a hundred yards and then made a left into the parking lot of the