Iceman Read Online Free Page B

his head back a little and studying the pictures and descriptions. “Mmmm."
    “These are the Alvarez girls. They were killed sometime in the last seventy-two hours. Killed and raped. Do you recognize them?” He watched the old man carefully.
    “Lordy, Lordy. I don't know as I can say for sure. These foreigners"—he shrugged and looked up at Eichord—"they're so hard to tell apart. Are these the ones that lived down the block here?"
    Eichord nodded. “Yeah. Did you know them?"
    “No, sir. I can't say as I did."
    “How did you know who they were?"
    “It says the names on there."
    “I mean, how did you know they lived down the block?"
    “Oh, we been seeing the story on the television and in the papers over the weekend. Tragic thing."
    “Um hmm."
    “Kids running around unsupervised and all."
    “How do you mean unsupervised?"
    “Why, I hear tell their mother never knew where they were after school and so forth. Just let them run loose, you see? Unsupervised. That's the way these third-worlders are. They don't have the same values as we do.” He shook his head.
    “Third-worlders,” Eichord repeated easily, drawing the old guy out.
    “Hispanics, La- TEE -nos, Chicanos, I don't know all the different names they go by now. Your Latin types from down under. Your drug-country people. Brown-skin types. Your Mexes and your boat people. LORdeeee!"
    “You realize we're talking about mutilated children, Mr. Hillfloen?"
    “That's what I'm talking about.” He shook his head. “Unstructured, unsupervised third-worlders. Running loose. Mother and father Lord knows where. THAT'S how they get into trouble."
    “Some sicko grabbed these girls in front of their home and tortured and killed them. Mutilated the bodies. Decapitated the kids. We're talking about somebody who REALLY had it in for these little girls. Do you hate people of color that much, Mr. Hillfloen?” Eichord's eyes bored into the old man.
    “ME?” He laughed mirthlessly, drawing himself up and returning Eichord's glare. “'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of Heaven ...’ Matthew nineteen:fourteen."
    But you do not lock a man up for giving off bad vibes, looking vaguely strange, or for having a voice like a loudspeaker. Nor is it against the law to be a bigot, so long as you keep your feelings to yourself. And that was the thing about Owen Hillfloen: whatever else he might have been, he was a private man.

North Buckhead
    T he ego is an amazing thing, Tina Hoyt thought as she watched the woman confide in her. Telling her that her speech had been so EXCITING and MEANINGFUL. Tina had already formed a poor first impression of her as she chattered on, trying to impress Tina with her intellect and misusing the words “comprise” and “hopefully” in a single utterance, thus losing Tina Hoyt's full attention.
    Yet the ego is such a phenomenal animal that you will stand there and smile and soak it all up as if it had some meaning as a critique, because it flatters you to do so, she thought. Because it is exciting and meaningful. Tina allowed her smile muscles to go slack and took a deep breath.
    “Just so incisive and brilliantly handled, and I—” The smile flashed back on in automatic response, but it was getting late and she had worked her butt off this week, and now this nothing lecture in North Buckhead, and she had to drive all the way crosstown to Buckhead Christian Church, and—she stole a look at her watch—it would be ten-forty-five, eleven o'clock before she got home.
    The woman paused, an anxious look on her face, and Tina snapped out of it long enough to nod.
    She'd already forgotten this person's name. White, was it? Janet WRIGHT—that was it, Wright. She was proud of her ability to retain name/face association. It was a vital skill to anyone who had the slightest glimmer of interest in a possible political future, which Tina Hoyt most assuredly did.
    “Awfully nice of you.” She