Free The Dead List by Martin Crosbie

almost walked into Pringle as they passed each other at the front door of the detachment. The investigator was once again wearing his long, dark-brown corduroy sports jacket. It contrasted oddly with his tan pants. Drake changed his mind; he didn’t look like an insurance salesman after all. Instead he looked like an oversized model who had just wandered off the pages of a 1976 clothing catalog. He turned when he saw Drake and stood at the open door. “Did you find any joy on the street of dreams?”
    “Maybe. Tommy Davis, built like a mountain, major priors, did a stretch for attempted back in the day. He says he heard a bang, but won’t elaborate. And an old man who I think knows more than he’s letting on.”
    Pringle had his own version of Ryberg’s eyebrow question mark. He gave Drake a tight smile that wasn’t really a smile and made a sucking noise with his cheeks. “Are you going back?”
    “I think so, yes.”
    “Let me know if you need a passenger. We had to release your friend Franco – half the town alibied him. They were all sitting in his living room watching the hockey game. Even his mother was with him.”
    Drake leaned against the wall in the hallway. “That’s too bad. I was thinking that maybe Robinson needed money and went to Franco. There might still be a connection there.”
    Pringle shook his head. “Sergeant Ryberg called a negative on that one, and I think he’s right. If Franco got his hands dirty, or had somebody do it for him, they wouldn’t leave a body lying around. You’d be investigating a missing person, not a murder. And I wouldn’t have had to drive out here in the middle of the night listening to Myron talk about his new computer.”
    A uniformed officer shuffled past the two men and stared at Pringle’s jacket. When he looked up and saw the man’s hard face he quickly moved along.
    Pringle smiled and winked at Drake. “I’m off to hit some more of your local bars to figure out where our unfortunate car salesman ate dinner last night. I mean it; let me know if you want me to tag along for your re-interviews.”
    “I will. Good luck.” Drake tried to avert his eyes from Pringle’s outfit, and wondered whether any of the patrons in the bars would have the courage to laugh at the large man’s odd choice of clothing.
    Ryberg was writing on the whiteboard. He’d added new names to the arrows that branched out from Robinson’s name. Each of the names from the list had its own arrow now – Parker, the sales manager, his two drinker friends Derek Rochfort and Frank Wilson, and Monica, the waitress. There was also an arrow to his mother’s name and a couple that went nowhere, ostensibly waiting for more connections from the man’s life to be discovered.
    Ryberg kept staring at the whiteboard and didn’t look up when Drake entered the situation room. “Any leads from your door-to-doors?”
    Drake repeated to Ryberg what had happened on the street.
    “A bang – we’ll ask the two boys about it when we re-question them. We’ll bring them in this time. But for now, Mr. Frank Wilson awaits us in interview room three. Quickly look at his file. I’ll take the lead and you can follow.”
    Drake began to interrupt, but Ryberg cut him off. “Don’t worry, you’ll catch on, you’re a smart lad.”
    Drake read the notes in the thin file as they made their way to the interview room. Frank Wilson was fifty-five years old. He was a logger who had been paid out in an insurance settlement ten years ago and retired early. In the hallway outside the interview room, Ryberg told Drake in a quiet voice that the officers who brought Wilson in had to endure a testy monologue. He claimed he’d met Robinson in the bar several years previously, and they’d struck up a conversation. After bumping into each other on a consistent basis a friendship was formed, and they’d meet and have a few beers several times a month. “But,” Ryberg leaned close to Drake, “he keeps repeating