Astride a Pink Horse Read Online Free Page A
muttering, “Damn!” Rikia started up the stairs. “This had better be important,” he announced, fighting to enunciate properly through his tongue-tied speech impediment.
Kimiko flashed him a steely-eyed look and said, “It is.” She grabbed him firmly by the arm when he reached the first-floor landing and walked him into the kitchen. “Have a look,” the surprisingly strong, 105-pound, seventy-six-year-old Kimiko said, waving at the television screen with her free hand.
Rikia slipped out of her grasp and turned to face the blonde, Cheyenne-based newscaster seated behind a desk that seemed to swallow her.
Kimiko slapped the top of the TV and said, “Listen!”
With a look of concern plastered on her face, the newscaster said theatrically, “Neither air force officials nor the Platte County sheriff are saying much about the man that a postal worker found hanging by his ankles inside a missile-silo personnel-access tube at the abandoned Tango-11 missile site near Wheatland. Nor are authorities saying how long the murdered man may have been there. Channel 4 has confirmed that the body is that of retired Air Force Master Sergeant Thurmond Giles, a decorated African American nuclear-missile maintenance technician. A joint air force–sheriff’s office briefing and news conference has been scheduledfor seven o’clock this evening in Wheatland. As always, Channel 4 News will be there to keep you abreast of the story.”
“Sometimes bad things happen to people,” Rikia said, smiling.
“And sooner or later the authorities will want to talk to us, Rikia. We both know that.”
“So we talk to them.” “Them” came out closer to “tem,” but Kimiko was used to the garbled sounds of Rikia’s speech.
“Yes, we will. Just be prepared.”
“I’m always prepared.” Rikia stepped over to his tiny, gray-haired cousin and draped a supportive arm over the shoulders of a woman who’d survived Wyoming’s infamous Heart Mountain Relocation Center for Japanese Americans during World War II. Smiling as he stared down at the dozens of tiny moles dotting her forehead, he said reassuringly, “I have to be. Look who taught me.”
Aware that his office conference room wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate all the media types, voyeurs, gossipmongers, and just plain nosy folks who’d show up, Sheriff Bosack had scheduled his seven p.m. news briefing at a courtroom in the Platte County courthouse.
The courtroom, which lacked a balcony, otherwise resembled the room made famous during the Scopes monkey trial, right down to its massive support columns, echoey wood-plank floors, and dank mustiness.
His stomach groaning, the sheriff started up the courthouse steps a little before seven. In the eight hours since Thurmond Giles’s body had been discovered at the Tango-11 site, Sheriff Bosack, who’d skipped breakfast so that he and Sam Reed couldget in a few minutes of North Platte River fly fishing that had never materialized, hadn’t had a bite to eat. Thinking with each new step,
This too shall pass
, he’d barely reached the top when Freddy Dames startled him by slipping out from behind a twenty-foot-tall concrete pillar. “What do you think, Sheriff? Have you got a hate crime on your hands, or do you think we’re looking at some kind of
Back to the Future
killing linked to the antinuclear movement?”
Freddy was the final straw in the sheriff’s hunger-panged, media-sniping, military-accommodating, politician-pleasing day. With barely a second of hesitation, he shoved Freddy backward into a surprised Cozy Coseia. Recognizing Cozy, the sheriff shook his head, muttered, “I should’ve known,” and continued into the courthouse.
“Told you to wait,” Cozy said, brushing himself off. Freddy’s ambush hadn’t paid off, but others like it had in the past, and Cozy knew that his stocky, chestnut-haired, risk-taking best friend wouldn’t change his MO anytime soon.
“Wait, my ass!” Freddy adjusted his
Kimiko flashed him a steely-eyed look and said, “It is.” She grabbed him firmly by the arm when he reached the first-floor landing and walked him into the kitchen. “Have a look,” the surprisingly strong, 105-pound, seventy-six-year-old Kimiko said, waving at the television screen with her free hand.
Rikia slipped out of her grasp and turned to face the blonde, Cheyenne-based newscaster seated behind a desk that seemed to swallow her.
Kimiko slapped the top of the TV and said, “Listen!”
With a look of concern plastered on her face, the newscaster said theatrically, “Neither air force officials nor the Platte County sheriff are saying much about the man that a postal worker found hanging by his ankles inside a missile-silo personnel-access tube at the abandoned Tango-11 missile site near Wheatland. Nor are authorities saying how long the murdered man may have been there. Channel 4 has confirmed that the body is that of retired Air Force Master Sergeant Thurmond Giles, a decorated African American nuclear-missile maintenance technician. A joint air force–sheriff’s office briefing and news conference has been scheduledfor seven o’clock this evening in Wheatland. As always, Channel 4 News will be there to keep you abreast of the story.”
“Sometimes bad things happen to people,” Rikia said, smiling.
“And sooner or later the authorities will want to talk to us, Rikia. We both know that.”
“So we talk to them.” “Them” came out closer to “tem,” but Kimiko was used to the garbled sounds of Rikia’s speech.
“Yes, we will. Just be prepared.”
“I’m always prepared.” Rikia stepped over to his tiny, gray-haired cousin and draped a supportive arm over the shoulders of a woman who’d survived Wyoming’s infamous Heart Mountain Relocation Center for Japanese Americans during World War II. Smiling as he stared down at the dozens of tiny moles dotting her forehead, he said reassuringly, “I have to be. Look who taught me.”
Aware that his office conference room wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate all the media types, voyeurs, gossipmongers, and just plain nosy folks who’d show up, Sheriff Bosack had scheduled his seven p.m. news briefing at a courtroom in the Platte County courthouse.
The courtroom, which lacked a balcony, otherwise resembled the room made famous during the Scopes monkey trial, right down to its massive support columns, echoey wood-plank floors, and dank mustiness.
His stomach groaning, the sheriff started up the courthouse steps a little before seven. In the eight hours since Thurmond Giles’s body had been discovered at the Tango-11 site, Sheriff Bosack, who’d skipped breakfast so that he and Sam Reed couldget in a few minutes of North Platte River fly fishing that had never materialized, hadn’t had a bite to eat. Thinking with each new step,
This too shall pass
, he’d barely reached the top when Freddy Dames startled him by slipping out from behind a twenty-foot-tall concrete pillar. “What do you think, Sheriff? Have you got a hate crime on your hands, or do you think we’re looking at some kind of
Back to the Future
killing linked to the antinuclear movement?”
Freddy was the final straw in the sheriff’s hunger-panged, media-sniping, military-accommodating, politician-pleasing day. With barely a second of hesitation, he shoved Freddy backward into a surprised Cozy Coseia. Recognizing Cozy, the sheriff shook his head, muttered, “I should’ve known,” and continued into the courthouse.
“Told you to wait,” Cozy said, brushing himself off. Freddy’s ambush hadn’t paid off, but others like it had in the past, and Cozy knew that his stocky, chestnut-haired, risk-taking best friend wouldn’t change his MO anytime soon.
“Wait, my ass!” Freddy adjusted his
Readers choose
John Philpin
Lauri Robinson
John Larkin
Belinda Rapley
Jackie French
Jus Accardo
Bianca D'Arc
Danika Steel