Free THE DEAD AMERICAN (The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels Book 3) by Jake Needham

another old duffer spending his afternoons sipping lattes at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Even if I wanted to help this woman, I don’t see what I can do for her.”
    Kang looked at Tay for a long moment, and Tay saw the disappointment in his eyes. Without another word, Kang started the car and pulled away from the curb.
     
    Kang stopped on Orchard Road in front of Peranakan Place, a lively bar area still thronged with drinkers even that late at night. Emerald Hill Road came to a dead end just on the other side of Peranakan Place so a short stroll among the tables of cheerful drinkers would see Tay emerge not a hundred feet from his house. If ISD was logging his comings and goings, that was a far better way to return home than to have it recorded somewhere that Sergeant Kang had dropped him off.
    Tay got out of the car, and then he turned back and bent down.
    “Thanks for dinner, Robbie.”
    “You’re welcome, sir.”
    “One other thing. Can you get me a copy of the investigative papers in the Tyler Bartlett case without telling anyone that they’re for me?”
    A slow smile spread over Kang’s face. “I thought you weren’t going to ask, sir.”
    “I’ll read the investigative papers, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do. I can’t promise you any more than that, Robbie. Good night.”
    “Good night, sir.”
    Tay straightened up, closed the passenger door, and walked toward home.

CHAPTER NINE
    TAY ANSWERED THE door at three o’clock the next afternoon and saw a white OCS Courier Service van parked at the curb in front of his house. The young man standing at his gate in a blue uniform asked if he was Samuel Tay. Tay confessed that he was, and he signed for the large envelope the man pushed between the bars. He checked the envelope for a shipper’s name and return address, but he found neither. He was anything but surprised.
    Tay carried the envelope out to the garden and sat down at the table. He tore it open and took out a copy of CID’s final investigative report on the death of Tyler Bartlett. Sergeant Kang had wasted no time. 
    Tay lit a Marlboro and started reading the report. The type was small and he had to hold the pages out away from his face at an unnatural distance to keep them in focus. He didn’t remember ever having to do anything like that before. Did that mean he needed glasses? My God , Tay thought to himself, I turn fifty on one day and on the very next day I start going blind .
    In spite of the awkward way he had to hold the pages, it didn’t take Tay very long to read the report. It was only six pages long and included neither photographs nor an autopsy report. The text of the report was unequivocal in its conclusion that Tyler Bartlett had committed suicide by hanging himself in his apartment. It left no room for doubt. The report was signed by Inspector Eddie Chin. Not Edward Chin. Eddie.
    When Tay finished reading, he tapped the six sheets of paper into a neat stack and slid them back into the envelope. He finished his cigarette and thought about what he had read and what Sergeant Kang had told him yesterday about the case.
    Tay had to admit that none of it looked exactly right, that was true enough, but he didn’t detect any obvious odor either. The inconsistencies between the report and what Sergeant Kang had seen could be explained simply as mediocre police work. Stupidity and laziness were common enough in the Singapore police force, as Tay suspected they were in police forces all over the world. Stupidity and laziness were real life. Government plots to cover up crimes were mostly fiction. What possible reason did the Singaporean police have to present Tyler Bartlett’s death as a suicide if it really was a murder? Tay certainly wasn’t naïve enough to doubt that such a thing was possible. He just didn’t think it was likely in this case.
    The face Singapore showed the world was that of a modern democratic state. For the people who lived there, however, the reality of