Free Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery #1: The Killing Circle (A Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery) by Chris Wiltz Page B

gum at me.
    “Sergeant,” I said and handed him his drink.
    Rankin smiled at me, a tired, almost affectionate smile.
    “Well, Lieutenant, your disposition seems somewhat improved since we last met. I suppose Carter Fleming is responsible for that.”
    The smile vanished. “Don't get snide, Neal.”
    Fonte spoke. “Why don't we take this guy in, Lieutenant. I'm sure he'll be real cooperative down at headquarters.” Rankin shot him a glance that clearly stated shut up.
    “Look, Neal, let's level with each other. If we pool our information, we'll get Fleming out of the hot seat a lot faster.”
    “I didn't know that Fleming was in any hot seat. You must know more than I do already. All I know is what Fleming told me. What did he tell you?”
    “He didn't have much to say to us.”
    I chuckled. “I told you Fleming wasn't going to like you charging in on him like that. He likes things his own way.”
    Rankin did a short deep-breathing exercise. “Hell, Neal, I know Fleming's big stuff in this city and has a lot of connections, and that a little guy like me should tread lightly and all that crap, but he's in the hot seat as far as I'm concerned. Look at it my way—he hires a private dick because he has some gripe with Garber. Garber is found murdered and so far we don't know of anyone else with a gripe against him. I ain't sayin’ we got anything on him. I just want to know why he hired you. You wanted to talk to him, he wanted to talk to you, the Garber women are in no condition to talk at all and I've got a job to do. Hell, if you don't tell, then he's gonna have to and he ain't gonna like that one bit and I'll be the one to catch it if we have to bring him in.”
    “That might be fun to see.”
    He brought the glass that was halfway to his mouth down heavily, sloshing Scotch all over the table. “You gonna tell me or not, Neal?”
    “Sure, I'll tell you. I'm just getting back for that dig you made earlier. You know.”
    His eyes got that dopey look. “Yeah. About your license.”
    “No. It was the dig before that.”
    He gave no indication that he knew what I was talking about. And he knew well enough that I wasn't going to say anything about Myra in front of Fonte. So I told him about the Blake editions. I told him I had gone to Garber's house, that Catherine had told me Garber had been missing for a week, and that it was the wife who hadn't wanted to go to the police. I said that I had talked to Catherine long enough to convince her to give me the key to the store.
    “You know what happened after that,” I finished.
    “Are the books in the store?” he asked.
    “No, and I don't think they're at the house, but I could be wrong.”
    “Why do you think the old lady didn't call us?”
    “I don't know. The daughter said she didn't know.”
    He looked like he thought someone ought to know. “How come you're so sure those books aren't at the house?”
    “I'm not sure, but it doesn't make sense that they would be. Fleming called over at the house several times. If the books had been there, why wouldn't they just give them to him?”
    “Maybe Garber stole them.”
    “I don't like that either. Like I told Fleming, it would have been a stupid thing to do.”
    “Stupid enough to get Garber killed.” It galled me. He could imply that Fleming would kill for his books, but he never would admit that Angelesi would kill to save his hide. To him Angelesi had always been just a regular guy. It was Fleming's enormous wealth that made him a suspect.
    “Well, Lieutenant, these are all just speculations. Right? What we need are some facts. Like what was Garber shot with.”
    “A twenty-two.” He finished off his drink.
    I pushed myself away from the table. “If it's alright with you, Lieutenant, I'm going to New York tomorrow. I was hired to find those books and it's possible they never left there.”
    Rankin seemed to like that idea. It got me out of the way for a while.
    I saw the gentlemen out. Rankin went out