Free Shadow Dragon by Lance Horton

‘Just because my roommate is too stupid to appreciate a good man doesn’t mean I am.’”
    “So did you go out with her?”
    “Hell yeah.”
    “How’d it go?”
    “Why don’t you ask Rochelle the next time you talk to her,” Lewis said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
    Kyle rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. “Thanks.”
    “No problem. That’s what partners are for.”
    Lewis’s cell phone rang. He answered and mouthed to Kyle that it was SAC Geddes. “At Joe’s, just finishing up lunch. Yeah, he’s right here. Why? What’s up?” Lewis’s eyes grew larger as Geddes spoke. “No shit? All right, we’re on our way,” he said and then hung up.
    “What is it?” Kyle asked.
    “They’ve found Henderson’s body.”
    They were both up and moving for the door when a booming thunderclap rattled the windows and cold, silvery rain began to spatter the pavement.
     

CHAPTER 14
    Montana
    It was late afternoon by the time they arrived in Kalispell. Agent Marasco picked them up and informed them they were going to the county morgue, where Henderson’s body had been transported for the autopsy. In Kalispell, there were relatively few suspicious deaths that required an autopsy at any given time, so instead of having to wait several days, the autopsy was scheduled to take place that afternoon.
    “Where was he found?” Lewis asked as they drove into town.
    “He was off the Forest Service road about three miles up one of the trails leading to Margaret Lake. Poor bastard either didn’t know where he was going or got lost, but he sure as hell wasn’t going that way on purpose. The trail’s uphill all the way and dead-ends at the lake.”
    “Any idea what killed him?”
    “Not yet. There were no visible injuries. The corpse was in good condition, though. It had been buried under the snow, and with the warmer weather this last week, it was just becoming exposed when one of the search-and-rescue patrols found him this morning. They found the missing ax from the cabin too. It was about ten yards from where the body was found. We already packed it up and shipped it off to the lab for analysis.”
    “Let’s hope they come up with something more than they did last time,” Lewis said.
    “I wouldn’t count on it,” said Marasco. “It looked pretty clean. There wasn’t any blood on it that any of us could see. A lot of the snow around it had melted away, but not enough to wash a bloody ax clean, and there were no traces of blood in the snow around it either. If you ask me, it wasn’t the murder weapon. When whatever went down at the cabin, I think this guy just grabbed it and ran.”
    When they arrived at the morgue, Marasco got out and lit up a cigarette before he went inside. Lewis joined him. Marasco offered his pack to Kyle, but Kyle shook his head.
    “You sure?”
    “I don’t smoke.”
    “No shit,” Marasco chuckled. “Stick around. That’ll change.”
    Kyle waited outside with Lewis and Marasco. As they stood in the small entryway, Kyle noticed Marasco seemed taller than he had thought when they had first met. As inconspicuously as possible, Kyle looked down at Marasco’s feet. Along with the black jeans he always seemed to wear, Marasco wore a pair of black, square-toed harness boots, with circular metal rings on each side and thick leather bands running under, behind, and across the top of the foot. The boots didn’t look to be particularly old, but they appeared to have been resoled or perhaps custom-ordered. Instead of the typical flat soles, these had thick, rubberized ones like the soles of hiking boots. The heels seemed especially tall for a man’s boot. Then Kyle began to understand.
    “Who’s the coroner,” Lewis asked.
    “Technically, the sheriff is,” Marasco said as he exhaled. “But since he ain’t a licensed physician, the autopsies are all handled by the assistant coroner, Al Crowe.”
    “He any good?”
    “Good enough, I suppose.”
    They finished their