Free Fourth Victim by Reed Farrel Coleman

to interrupt their washing and waxing to make a new friend. No one asks questions of a man bearing donuts and coffee. And there was an added bonus; a Suffolk cop from the 4th precinct. His white and blue unit was already parked in the house’s side lot when Healy pulled in.
    As he bullshitted with the guys from the house and the cop, Healy kept an eye on the doings across the street. At 7:00, a guy pulled into the body shop’s lot and parked his gray Acura in a corner spot. He was in his fifties and walked with the stooped grace of a man who had done the same hard job for many years. To Bob it seemed there was a sort of resignation in the man’s stride. Dressed in the now familiar green coveralls of Epsilon Energy, he carried a metal ticket box and his Hagstrom maps in one hand, a tall cup of 7/Eleven coffee in the other. 7/Eleven coffee: the oil man’s breakfast of choice. When he disappeared around the back of the body shop, Healy excused himself from his new pals and walked across the street.
    The Epsilon guy was just getting into the cab of a 2000 Mack cab-over with a 3000 gallon tank. The truck was cleaner than any oil truck Healy had ever seen and it started right up without the grumble and coughs of Mayday’s aging fleet.
    “Nice, clean truck,” he called up to the cab.
    “You want buy it?” the driver shouted over the din of the diesel.
    “You the owner?”
    “Couldn’t sell it to you if I wasn’t.”
    The man stepped down from the cab, approaching Healy cautiously. It didn’t escape Healy’s notice that the guy’s right hand was tucked out of sight.
    “You might not want to let me think you’ve got an unregistered firearm there behind your back,” Bob said, pointing.
    “I don’t give a shit what you think, but if it makes you feel better, it’s registered,” he said, showing Bob the blue finish on the short-barrel. 38. “Funny thing, you know. I’ve owned Epsilon for about fifteen years, another oil outfit for ten before that, and not once has anybody come up to talk to me about how clean I keep my equipment at seven in the morning.”
    “I see your point.” Healy held his hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to say I was sorry to hear about your driver, Albie.”
    The man put the. 38 at his side. “Sorry about the gun, but I’m a little nervous these days.”
    “You’ve got cause. I’m Bob Healy from Mayday Fuel. You talked to my partner on the phone yester—”
    “Joe Serpe. Seemed like a nice enough guy.”
    “I’ll tell him you say so. I live in town and, like I said, I just wanted to come over and express my condolensces.”
    The man rushed back to the truck, put the revolver away, and came back to Healy with his right hand extended. “Jack Peterson. Again, sorry about the gun.”
    “No problem.” Bob shook his hand. “You talked to Joe so you understand that we’re looking into what’s been going on with these murders. We both knew the fourth victim from the job.”
    “Good. The asshole the Suffolk PD’s got in charge didn’t exactly inspire my confidence. Didn’t strike me as a man who could find his own dick to piss with.”
    “Hoskins is an asshole, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cooperate with him.”
    “There wasn’t much I could tell him anyway. Albie was a great guy. Had no enemies that I knew of, not that I knew many of his amigos. We deliver only on the North Shore, so I didn’t figure anything like this was gonna happen to him. I mean, all of my stops are in good areas and all my customers are good people.”
    “You mean white people.”
    “You wanna put it like that, okay, yeah, white people. I got nothing against nobody, but look for yourself where these murders happened. C’mon, you think a Jewish doctor from Commack and the guy that owns the Italian restaurant from Smithtown are killing these drivers? You know how many times some crackhead nigger stuck a gun in my face when I was delivering down in Bay Shore in the