Old Flame Read Online Free Page A

very long French-tipped nails, and a brittle smile played on her lips.
    “Yeah, but it didn’t last long,” she said. “He had hand trouble. The psycho thought I needed disciplining every now and again.”
    “My turn to say I’m sorry.”
    She shrugged. “What is it they say? All the bad things in your life just make you stronger?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Are you involved with anyone?”
    “I am,” I said.
    She nodded. “It really sucks being alone, doesn’t it,” she said.
    “Not when you’re your own best friend.”
    She smiled. “I forgot. You never needed anyone.” She paused. “Except for Dave.”
    “Forever bound by the ties of filial love, my brother and I continue to march in lockstep through these mean streets. Yin and Yang.”
    Her eyes strayed to her hands. “Light and darkness. Black and white.”
    “Tell me about Tony,” I said.
    Her fingers toyed with a silver crucifix hanging from a slender chain around her neck.
    “He works in the city—works
for
the city actually, Minority Opportunities Bureau—but we met out here. He’s — he was —a decent guy, and we hit it off right away.”
    “How long were you married?”
    “Almost six years.”
    “How did that go down with Jeanmarie and Ollie?”
    “How do you think? They barely tolerated
you.
Tony? They wouldn’t let him in their house. Ollie still doesn’t talk to me. Thinks I’m some sort of a race betrayer.”
    “Ollie was always open-minded,” I said.
    “You know what really frosts me?”
    “What?”
    “When we were kids, come Friday night, Ollie and his buddies would be cruising black bars looking to get lucky. I know because I followed them one night. And if he didn’t manage to get lucky, he’d come home, all smelling of puke and whiskey, and take it out on us.” Her eyes filled. “Ollie and his buddies standing on each other’s shoulders don’t add up to one Tony Ferris.”
    She was silent for a while.
    Then she turned to me.
    “Does it matter to you?” she said.
    “Does what matter?”
    “That Tony was black.”
    “Should it?”
    “No,” she said.
    “Why do you think Tony was murdered?”
    She reached over to the coffee table and snagged a file.
    “Take a look at this,” she said.
    It was some of the vilest racist crap I had ever seen. Six letters, unsigned and computer printed, and filled with dire and colorful word pictures of Tony’s fate if he didn’t heed the warnings to pack up and go.
    I closed the file.
    “Take it,” she said. “They’re copies. I have the originals.”
    “Did you show this to the police?”
    “Sure.”
    “And?”
    “A lot of good it did. He’s dead.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “Make things right.”

CHAPTER
    5
    M ake things right.
    How do you square things? The knee-jerk answer is
closure,
the magic word du jour that means different things to different people. Another notch on the DA’s belt, one less thing for the cops to deal with, the next new thing for the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and a cruel promise for the victim’s family.
    I called Pete Toal from the road and asked if the ME’s report was in.
    “No,” he said. “Busy day at the coroner. Stiffs have to take a number. But I don’t need the ME for a reading on this one.”
    “How so?”
    “Perp beat the shit out of him. Lot of emotion went into his work. Especially around the groin area. Nuts are the size of volleyballs. Look, I’d love to chat, but me and Swede are off on another adventure. I’ll let you know when I hear something.”
    Crime of passion. And I’d neglected to ask Ginny where she was last night. It would keep.
    My next call was to Allie. She penciled me in for a late lunch.
    The drive back to the city took hours. Thousands of people made the trip every day. I wondered how they stayed sane.
    We met at a little outdoor café near her office. Apparently the pitch had gone well, and six and a half hours on the red-eye hadn’t dampened the high.
    With straight,