Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

friendships.
    Steele continued. “On the physical side of things, she has a couple tears in her fatigues. One on the side of her shirt, another on the inner thigh of her pants, which she was trying her best to hide. And she’s missing a couple buttons.”
    That’s what I’d been looking for, though I’d only noticed the buttons and the tear in her shirt. “Now, I don’t know a ton about the army, but I do know they’re sticklers for proper dress. I can’t imagine they’d stand for sloppiness of that nature. Quinto, what can you tell me about Drake?”
    Quinto shrugged. “He’s quiet. Reserved. Didn’t seem particularly comfortable talking to me.”
    “I was looking for more physical cues,” I said.
    Shay answered for him. “He’s bruised, too. Hard to see under his beard, but it’s there. And his hands are swollen.”
    “Right,” I said. “Now take another look at our formerly-breathing vagrant friend on the ground here. Remember what you said about how he died?”
    “By blunt force trauma,” said Steele.
    “You see where I’m going with this?” I asked.
    Steele nodded. “Yeah. I was more of less coming to the same conclusion myself.”
    I eyed Quinto. He looked back at me blankly, then at Steele, who gave him a double eyebrow raise.
    The big guy eyed my thermos, which stuck out of my coat pocket, and frowned. “Her, I’ve come to expect this out of, but you, Daggers? What in the world did your guy use to brew your drink?”
    “Just coffee beans, to my knowledge,” I said. “But that’s enough. It’s a miracle drug, I swear. Want some?”
    “No thanks,” he said. “I’ll settle for an explanation of whatever it is you two are thinking.”
    “Alright,” I said. “Let’s assume much of what of what our three GIs said was true. But what if, instead of Tim heading into that alley to pee, it was Kelly who had to go instead. Or perhaps they all had to go, but Tim and Drake went first and Kelly second.”
    “Which brings us to the dead man,” said Steele. “I think we’re all in agreement he was a vagrant. Chances are he lived in this alley, or at least spent last night here. Then he sees Kelly wander in. Alone. She drops her pants, and his baser instincts take over. He tries to cop a feel, or perhaps worse. I’m guessing the latter, based on the tears in Kelly’s clothes. But Kelly fights back, and she screams, bringing Tim and Drake running.”
    “Exactly,” I said. “Her two buddies figure they’ll teach the bum a lesson, so they start to wail on the guy. But he’s big, and they’re drunk, and he fights back. The sexually deviant hobo gets a few good licks in on Tim before the tide starts to turn. And now Tim and Drake are really pissed, and they go to town on the guy. Deliver an epic beating. A little too epic.”
    Quinto rubbed his chin. “And the guys dies. Yeah, it’s plausible for sure. But it’s just a theory. We’ll need solid evidence if we want to put a case together.”
    “Well it sounds as if there were other witnesses,” said Steele. “They may not have seen what happened, but they may have heard something. And there’s the issue of a murder weapon…”
    I nodded. “Yeah. Cairny might be able to prove otherwise, but it does look like they beaned the guy with something.” I drummed my fingers on my chin. “Maybe we should check the alley? If there’s a weapon, it could still be there.”
    Steele and Quinto voiced their agreement, and we wandered into the dimly lit muck.
     

5
    Back in the halcyon days of my youth, the city embarked on a fairly serious campaign to rid New Welwic of homelessness. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of crowns were raised through new taxes and private donations to help solve the problem, but in the grand wisdom of political groupthink, it was decided that said monies wouldn’t be used to fund meal centers, half-way houses, and vocational facilities where the homeless could learn skills that would help them feed and house