Free Stakeout (2013) by Parnell Hall Page B

into the passenger seat, popped the glove compartment. It was the first place I looked, largely because it was right in front of me. I found an owner’s manual, still in plastic, most likely unread, and a mountain of receipts. I wondered if knowing what this young woman had bought could possibly help me.
    I slammed the glove compartment, turned around, looked in the back seat.
    There was a lightweight overcoat wadded up in the corner, and that was it. I shook it out, patted the pockets, found nothing, checked for an inner pocket which the coat didn’t have. I wadded it up, threw it back in the corner.
    On the floor on the far side of the driver’s seat was the trunk release. I wondered if I should pop the trunk. Jersey Girl hadn’t, so there wasn’t much point. But I didn’t have anything else. I leaned over, popped the trunk.
    I got out, walked around the car. Tried to appear like a casual motorist as opposed to a car thief. I’m not quite sure of the distinction, but I gave it my best shot.
    I raised the lid of the trunk.
    Jackpot!
    Right there in plain sight was a woman’s leather purse, big enough to have held the manila envelope. I picked it up nonchalantly, as if performing a task for my wife, retrieving something she had sent me back to the car to get.
    I pulled the purse open wide.
    No manila envelopes sprang to view. But I couldn’t really see. I stuck my hand in the purse, was instantly disappointed. I could tell from how far my hand went in without encountering anything that, unless she had folded the envelope up, it was not there. Of course, all of that was dismissing the reality that since I hadn’t seen her open the trunk and put the envelope in the purse, there was no way it could be.
    On the other hand, unless she stuffed it in her pants on her way into the beauty parlor, it had to be somewhere.
    I fumbled deeper in the purse.
    My hand hit something cold and hard.
    I pulled it out.
    It was a gun.
    I immediately leaned further over the trunk, shielding my find from prying eyes with my body, as if I were a nervous husband not wanting people to see I was looking in my wife’s purse.
    All right, all right, that wasn’t my intention. The appearance of the gun had short-circuited my nervous system, rendering my dissembling and play-acting moot, and left me simply reacting on the basic instinct of not wanting anyone to see what I had found.
    I angled my body between the car and the sidewalk and inspected the weapon.
    It was a revolver. A Smith & Wesson revolver. A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, but that’s a guess. I’ve seen MacAullif’s gun, not his police issue, his private gun, and that’s a thirty-eight. I’d handled it once, empty.
    This gun was not empty.
    This gun had bullets.
    I popped the cylinder, dumped them out. In more time than it takes to tell it. I handled the gun gingerly trying not to shoot myself in the foot.
    There were five bullets and one empty shell casing.
    I sniffed the barrel.
    The gun had been recently fired. How recently, I couldn’t tell you, but there was the unmistakable smell of gunpowder. I’d have to do some research to find out how long the smell would last.
    I jammed the bullets back in the cylinder, replaced the empty shell, and stuck the gun back in the purse. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. I was leaving fingerprints all over the place. But there was no help for it. I couldn’t take out a handkerchief and start polishing bullets in the middle of the street.
    I put the purse back in the trunk, slammed it shut.
    The discovery of the gun had distracted me from my initial objective. I still had no idea what had happened to the manila envelope.
    I got back in the car again. Felt under the passenger’s seat. There was nothing there. I tried the driver’s seat. There was nothing there either.
    I got out of the car, opened the back door, searched under the seats from behind. There was nothing under the passenger’s seat. I tried the driver’s seat.
    My