Past Imperfect (Sigrid Harald) Read Online Free Page A

the other side of the goddamned bridge.”
    He patted his pockets until he located a fresh packet of antacid tablets.
    Twenty minutes later, the diver found Cluett’s sodden wallet. A few minutes after that, she emerged from the chilly water with a Browning semiautomatic pistol clutched in her gloved hand.
     

 
    CHAPTER 4
     
    As the subway train hurtled into the station, young Lotty Fischer gave her reddened nose a final dab, then tucked her handkerchief into an outer pocket, and stood up. The train ground to a stop with an ear-wrecking shriek of brakes and a lurch that made her clutch at one of the upright steel poles to keep her balance. She had been fighting a cold all week with over-the-counter medications, and antihistamines always made her a little dizzy.
    5:37 P.M.
    There was a raw tickle in the back of her throat and the subway car seemed warmer than usual. Maybe her mother was right, Lotty thought. Maybe she was coming down with something more serious than a head cold and should’ve called in sick. Except that the computers at work were already understaffed and it would back everything up and make even more paperwork for her cop friends if she stayed out, too.
    Crowds of homeward-bound commuters jostled each other on the platform as Lotty waited for the train doors to open.
    The ending of their work day meant the beginning of hers.
    Like a fish swimming upstream against the current, she let them surge past her. Another cascade of humanity flowed down the damp concrete steps from the street, but she kept to the right wall and doggedly continued upward. Once she’d gained the sidewalk, a vicious gust plastered her new red coat to her small body and tried to whip away the ends of her red wool head scarf. She shifted the strap of her shoulder bag and pulled the scarf ends tighter, grateful that she only had a few short blocks to walk in this icy wind. Spring couldn’t get here too fast to suit her.
    5:43.
    Even though the days were getting longer, darkness had already fallen. Streetlights turned the overcast sky a pinkish orange but neon store fronts were a blaze of cheerful color.
    Lotty ducked into one of the stores, a kosher Chinese deli, for a carton of eggdrop soup to go with the tuna salad she’d packed for her supper. “At least promise me you’ll get something hot,” her mother had said.
    Lotty smiled indulgently as she paid for the soup and hurried back outside. Twenty-two years old and Mom still couldn’t quit treating her like a little girl off to school with her lunch money clutched in her hand. She worried that Lotty wouldn’t eat properly, wasn’t dressed warmly enough, wasn’t safe going back and forth alone on the subway.
    To tell the truth, thought Lotty, she wasn’t all that crazy about taking the subway home alone herself. That was the only drawback with this position. She liked the hours, had asked for them in fact so that her invalid mother never had to be alone except for that half-hour gap between the time she had to leave for work and the time her father got home from his own job.
    It was supposed to be a four-to-midnight shift like the standard police rotation, but because the computer section was understaffed, she had been on six-to-two for the last week and a half. This meant going down into a subway station that was even more deserted than at midnight when others on the regular rotation might also be homeward bound. Certainly no rush hour crowds at two A.M. and no safety in numbers.
    Once or twice, one of the guys working midnight-to-eight had walked her down and waited till the train came and then made sure she was in a car with a conductor. Usually though, she chickened out and took a bus. It was three times as slow, but felt six times safer.
    She’d been promised that her four-to-midnight would be restored as soon as they hired more people. By the end of the month, for sure, Personnel had promised. Like summer, it couldn’t come too soon for Lotty.
    She entered the