Free 5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 by Frederick Ramsay Page B

you quit, and I know that wasn’t the reason.”
    “It helped. Now are there any more surprises for me?”
    “In the ceiling fan—little camera. Be careful, it cost a fortune.”
    “You’re lucky I don’t sell all this stuff to the Chinese.”
    “No market. They made all of it in the first place.”
    Ike hung up.
    He hung a pair of jockey shorts on the ceiling fan and turned his attention to the pictures. The blowup of the pier showed a scrap of flotsam that could have been part of a tail. The work boat moored to the pier showed a man on the deck. The comparison shots confirmed that the barge, if that is what it had been, had been replaced by the duck blind. Why a duck blind?
    He spent the next three hours studying the pictures, hoping for a pattern to emerge. He fixed himself a sandwich and a pot of coffee and retired to the porch to think. The ocean turned gray and then black as the sun sank in the west behind him. An offshore breeze picked up sending salty air across the beach. Except for the phone call to Charlie’s niece, death spiral still seemed to be the best answer for Nick’s sudden disappearance. Something, an image of something out of place, tried to push its way up from his subconscious. He waited. His subconscious stayed silent. At ten he shuffled off to bed.

Chapter 14
    Frank Sutherlin read the ET’s report, turning each page with care. A methodical man, he wanted to be sure he hadn’t missed anything when he visited the site earlier. He had been correct. The stains on the stone table were blood—animal blood. The lab couldn’t be sure what kind or how many different, if any, without further, more sophisticated, tests. He called and told the director not to bother. He didn’t know what the kids were up to. He assumed they were kids, given the sinkhole’s traditional use, but he sure didn’t want to spend any more of his time and the taxpayer’s money just to find out the kids were parceling out raw hamburger to cook on the fires. He shoved the report in a drawer.
    Essie sailed by on her way to the restroom looking triumphant. His brother Billy sauntered in and flopped down in the corner chair.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol?”
    “Made one loop, thought I’d check in on momma-to-be ’fore I took another. My coffee tank’s a little low, too, and I don’t want to pay some Seven-Eleven guy two bucks for a cup of burned coffee. I got to be saving up.”
    “So you come in here for your burned coffee instead.”
    “Essie made us a fresh pot. You should try some instead of that herbal tea you drink. What do you see in it anyway?”
    “It’s green tea and it’s good for you. It’s got antioxidants that have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, arthritis, high cholesterol, heart disease, and to pump up your immune system.”
    “Yeah, but will it wake you up in the morning after an ‘all-nighter’?”
    “Get out of here. Essie, make your husband get back on the road before I dock his pay.”
    Essie rounded the corner and gave Billy a smack on the back of his head.
    “You heard the man. We can’t afford no lollygagging around. Baby needs shoes.”
    “You wasn’t so flaming conscientious before.”
    “Yeah, well back then I wasn’t married, pregnant, and looking at real estate neither.”
    “You’re looking at what?”
    “You can’t expect us to be raising children in a trailer park, Billy. First off, there ain’t room enough to swing a cat in that place of mine, as you most surely know. Second, even if there was, there’s the other kids we’re having, and schools and—”
    “Other kids? Whoa up there, Missy. Let’s us just take them one at a time.”
    Frank stood and pointed first toward the door and then to Essie’s desk.
    “You two, you can have this out at home. Billy, git. Essie, sit.”
    The phone rang. Frank picked up before Essie had reached the dispatch desk. Blake Fisher asked for Deputy Sutherlin.
    “You got him.”
    “I guess this will sound