Free A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi

only mark of wear being the pavement dimples. So it hadn’t been there too long.
    If the matchbook belonged to the murder victim, then he was staying at the Blue Bird. That much was obvious. A drug addict would fit, paying weekly rent in a run-down motel. Comes out here for Deirdre’s help, maybe had some inside information on the area’s drug trade. Which would explain someone trying to stop him.
    I saw the guy standing outside, getting his nerve up. Smoking. Empty matchbook discarded. Or being dropped in a struggle and blowing down the street. Any number of things. The matchbook may have been the culprit’s. If the death wasn’t drug-related, that left Turret in the scenario I’d related to Deirdre this morning. Maybe the boy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Saw Turret lurking and was killed because of it.
    The police hadn’t found a vehicle belonging to the victim, though. If he’d driven here, he probably wasn’t alone. Someone had taken the car after what happened. The killer himself? A companion who escaped?
    One thing was certain. I wouldn’t find out just sitting here. I should call the cops and tell them about finding the matchbook.
    Which now had my fingerprints all over it. I hadn’t thought of that, and silently cursed myself. At the very least, Branson would be furious with me for contaminating a piece of potential evidence. He wouldn’t hesitate to make things tough for me, judging from his outburst this morning. And I should have kept my mouth shut as I was leaving the interrogation room.
    I wondered where in Indio the Blue Bird was. Got the phone book and opened it to the Yellow Pages. The place was nowhere to be found, which didn’t surprise me given my earlier guess about it. I flipped to the white pages, the fine print straining my eyes in the dimly lit kitchen.
    There. Halfway down the page. Indio was a thirty-minute drive south on I-10 or one hour if you followed Palm Canyon Drive as it curved against the base of the mountains through most of the other valley cities.
    An obvious choice presented itself. Call the cops or check it out myself first. Maybe if I pursued it on my own, I’d find that the Blue Bird had nothing to do with the murder and I wouldn’t have to risk Branson’s ire for no reason.
    Then the possibility of Turret being involved hit me again. Maybe he was the smoker. Maybe he was staying at the motel right now. I could make a quick call and find out if he was registered there, but I didn’t want to chance alerting him in any way. If Turret was behind this, and I could surprise him, take him down myself … the idea had a certain mano a mano appeal to it. And boy, did he have it coming from me—an old score I’d never imagined being able to settle.
    In the end, my earlier decision to stay out of the case wasn’t a factor. Here was a gift from the karmic gods. I couldn’t say no.

CHAPTER SIX
    I tried not to think about what I was doing, afraid that if I debated the pros and cons any further, good sense would prevail or I would chicken out entirely. Still, I took more time than I needed to moving around the house, making sure the windows were shut and locked, closing and locking the sliding glass door in the kitchen. I wrote Deirdre a note saying I went out for a drink and would be back around two. Left it on her night table in the small pool of light from the bedside lamp. I lied because I knew she wouldn’t approve of what I was doing, convincing myself if the trip proved fruitless there was no reason to upset her. Like most married men with their wives, I was afraid of Deirdre.
    I made a last circuit of the house, then checked the inside door lock in the shop. Just before I shut the light off, something occurred to me. In one of the bench drawers were some gloves I used for staining furniture and I grabbed a pair to take with me. Probably wouldn’t need them, but if it came to