Free Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) by Tim Cockey Page A

written all over it.
    I stood on the corner and watched the police going over the inside and outside of the Pontiac trying to pick up additional clues. Kruk ordered two of his men to practically crawl on their hands and knees from the car all the way around the block to the front door of Sewell & Sons. It wasn’t too likely that whoever brought Helen down here bothered to drag her body all that way. More likely she had been dumped off, and then the car had been pulled around the corner and abandoned there. The inch-by-inch assignment carried the whiff of penance.
    “You are a vengeful god,” I told Kruk.
    He ignored the compliment.
    “I’m disgusted. We should have discovered this car that night.”
    “I don’t know. White car in a snowstorm. I think your men could make a decent case.”
    “I’m not in the mood for you right now, Mr. Sewell.”
    I didn’t bother asking if he ever was. Instead I asked, “So the car was stolen?”
    “It was called in around noon the day of the murder. Taken right off the street in Federal Hill. Guy was having lunch at Sissons. Comes out, car’s gone.”
    “So what do you make of that?”
    Kruk shrugged. “The murder was probably planned. The killer picked up the car with the intention of getting Helen Waggoner into it. You can bet we won’t pull the killer’s prints off the car.”
    Kruk was watching his two foot soldiers as they made their way
s-l-o-w-l-y
up the block. If a person can look both pissed and pleased at the same time, Kruk did. I noticed, not for the first time, that the short detective was underdressed for the extreme temperatures. No scarf, no gloves, only a flimsy overcoat. It didn’t seem to bother him. Maybe it was all the bad precinct coffee that coursed through his veins. Internal insulation.
    “So, if it was preplanned does that count out crime of passion?”
    Kruk lit a cigarette and pocketed the match. “It rules out an argument that just got out of hand. That will mean something when it gets to trial. It doesn’t get me any closer to the killer.”
    “So the car doesn’t help you, does it?”
    Kruk shook his hammy head. “Not really. No.”
    I let the disgruntled detective go about his business. He ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape that had been stretched around the car and knocked a few more heads together. The two officers he had dispatched to cover the turf between the Pontiac and the funeral home reported back to him. They had found nothing. Kruk hadn’t really expected that they would, though I heard him chewing the men out anyway.
“A fucking dog found more evidence than you did!”
I’d have to remember to congratulate my celebrated pooch.
    The scene was a bust. The tow truck Kruk had called in arrived to take the car away. The Pontiac was winched up onto a flatbed truck and secured with chains. As the truck moved down the street, it let out a huge backfire.
    I met with Bonnie at Alonso’s Bar on Coldspring Lane. Alonso’s is a dark, toasty bar just across the expressway from Television Hill. People from the station have been hanging out here since the time of Jesus. The outside of the building is comprised of glass bricks and a heavy wooden door with a porthole window. There is a small package liquor section in the front, a long horseshoe bar right past that and a half dozen booths in the rear, off the open end of the horseshoe. The rest rooms are beyond the booths, and beyond them is the kitchen. Moscow is about eleven thousand miles past that. If we want to go that far.
    Bonnie was at a booth. As expected. Jay Adams was there with her. Not such a nice surprise. The Sunpapers reporter gave me a smirking smile as I squeezed in next to my honey bunch. Bonnie and I didn’t kiss or otherwise show any outward signs that we were sharing the same sheets. Bonnie is rigid on this; she doesn’t want her personal life on display for gawkers. She reached over with her hand under the table and goosed me. That’s fine. Better than a peck