Blood Hunt Read Online Free
Author: Lee Killough
“That’s great!”
“ You remember I told you I’ve seen him in the neighborhood before? Well, he was here this morning again, bold as brass, talking to that Hambright girl up the street. I walked very close to them and I heard her call him Wink.”
“ Mrs. Hogue, thank you very much!”
“ You catch that skunk. Senor Campera was a nice gentleman.”
Garreth headed for Records to check the name Wink through the moniker file.
They came up with a make, one Leroy Martin Luther O’Hare, called Wink, as in “quick as a,” for the way he snatched purses in his juvenile delinquency days by sweeping past victims on a skateboard. Purse snatching had been only one of his offenses. Wink added burglary and auto theft to his yellow sheet as he approached legal adulthood, though he had not been convicted of either charge.
Garreth headed for his personal car in the parking lot — a Prussian red Datsun ZX he and Marti had given each other their last anniversary — and with Wink’s photograph tucked among five others of young black males for a photo lineup, drove to Mrs. Hogue’s house.
She quickly picked out Wink. “That’s him; that’s the one I saw this morning and the one I saw coming out of the bodega after I heard the shooting.”
Garreth called Serruto.
“ We’ll get a warrant for him,” the lieutenant said.
Garreth visited Wink’s mother and girlfriend, Rosella Hambright. He also talked to the neighbors of both. No one, of course, offered any help. Garreth gained the impression that even Wink’s mother hardly knew the person Garreth asked about. The neighbors denied any knowledge of comings and goings from Mrs. O’Hare’s or Miss Hambright’s apartment.
“ Hey, man, I gots enough to do chasin’ rats over here without watchin’ someone else over there,” they said, or else: “You wrong about Wink. He no good, but he no holdup man. He never owned no gun.”
Garreth dropped word of wanting Wink into a few receptive ears whose owners knew he would reward good information, then he headed for the Westin. He would see Serruto about staking out the mother’s and girlfriend’s apartments. For now, he better check in with Harry before his partner put out an APB on him.
7
He missed Harry at the Westin and arrived back in Homicide to find Harry starting reports. After a rundown of Garreth’s day, he sighed. “So we both came up empty.”
“ Except for identifying our bodega gunman and the odd results of the autopsy.” Garreth rolled a report form into his typewriter. “Did I miss anything interesting at the Moscone?”
“ Just Susan Pegans fainting dead away when we told her about Mossman...and here I thought women swooning went out with whalebone corsets. No one I talked to, conventioneers or other exhibitors around Kitco’s booth, saw him last night or knew where he was going.”
Garreth began his report. “Find anything useful in his room?”
“ Nothing telling us where he went. He had clothes, a couple of paperbacks, a return plane ticket to Denver. He left his exhibitor’s badge...and did go out light, like Verneau said. Personal keys, several other credit cards, two hundred in cash, and another two hundred in traveler’s checks were under a false bottom of his shaving kit. No billfold, so he must have had that on him when he was killed. He made two calls, one Monday and one last night, both a little after seven in the evening and both to his home phone in Denver.”
“ Tomorrow why don’t I check the cab companies to see if one of them took a fare of Mossman’s description anywhere last night?”
“ Do that.”
Garreth remembered then that he needed to talk to the lieutenant. He knocked on Serruto’s door. “Got a minute?”
“ If it’s about the warrant on O’Hare, we have it. There’s an APB out on him, too.”
“ I’d like to stake out his mother’s and girlfriend’s apartments. He’s bound to get in touch with one or the other.”
Serruto leaned
“ You remember I told you I’ve seen him in the neighborhood before? Well, he was here this morning again, bold as brass, talking to that Hambright girl up the street. I walked very close to them and I heard her call him Wink.”
“ Mrs. Hogue, thank you very much!”
“ You catch that skunk. Senor Campera was a nice gentleman.”
Garreth headed for Records to check the name Wink through the moniker file.
They came up with a make, one Leroy Martin Luther O’Hare, called Wink, as in “quick as a,” for the way he snatched purses in his juvenile delinquency days by sweeping past victims on a skateboard. Purse snatching had been only one of his offenses. Wink added burglary and auto theft to his yellow sheet as he approached legal adulthood, though he had not been convicted of either charge.
Garreth headed for his personal car in the parking lot — a Prussian red Datsun ZX he and Marti had given each other their last anniversary — and with Wink’s photograph tucked among five others of young black males for a photo lineup, drove to Mrs. Hogue’s house.
She quickly picked out Wink. “That’s him; that’s the one I saw this morning and the one I saw coming out of the bodega after I heard the shooting.”
Garreth called Serruto.
“ We’ll get a warrant for him,” the lieutenant said.
Garreth visited Wink’s mother and girlfriend, Rosella Hambright. He also talked to the neighbors of both. No one, of course, offered any help. Garreth gained the impression that even Wink’s mother hardly knew the person Garreth asked about. The neighbors denied any knowledge of comings and goings from Mrs. O’Hare’s or Miss Hambright’s apartment.
“ Hey, man, I gots enough to do chasin’ rats over here without watchin’ someone else over there,” they said, or else: “You wrong about Wink. He no good, but he no holdup man. He never owned no gun.”
Garreth dropped word of wanting Wink into a few receptive ears whose owners knew he would reward good information, then he headed for the Westin. He would see Serruto about staking out the mother’s and girlfriend’s apartments. For now, he better check in with Harry before his partner put out an APB on him.
7
He missed Harry at the Westin and arrived back in Homicide to find Harry starting reports. After a rundown of Garreth’s day, he sighed. “So we both came up empty.”
“ Except for identifying our bodega gunman and the odd results of the autopsy.” Garreth rolled a report form into his typewriter. “Did I miss anything interesting at the Moscone?”
“ Just Susan Pegans fainting dead away when we told her about Mossman...and here I thought women swooning went out with whalebone corsets. No one I talked to, conventioneers or other exhibitors around Kitco’s booth, saw him last night or knew where he was going.”
Garreth began his report. “Find anything useful in his room?”
“ Nothing telling us where he went. He had clothes, a couple of paperbacks, a return plane ticket to Denver. He left his exhibitor’s badge...and did go out light, like Verneau said. Personal keys, several other credit cards, two hundred in cash, and another two hundred in traveler’s checks were under a false bottom of his shaving kit. No billfold, so he must have had that on him when he was killed. He made two calls, one Monday and one last night, both a little after seven in the evening and both to his home phone in Denver.”
“ Tomorrow why don’t I check the cab companies to see if one of them took a fare of Mossman’s description anywhere last night?”
“ Do that.”
Garreth remembered then that he needed to talk to the lieutenant. He knocked on Serruto’s door. “Got a minute?”
“ If it’s about the warrant on O’Hare, we have it. There’s an APB out on him, too.”
“ I’d like to stake out his mother’s and girlfriend’s apartments. He’s bound to get in touch with one or the other.”
Serruto leaned
Readers choose
Sher Dillard
Laura Day
Catherine Alliott
Karen Rivers
Duncan Ball
Francesca Zappia
Eve Vaughn
Kami García, Margaret Stohl
Penny Greenhorn