Payoff Read Online Free

the accountants at the police to make sure I wasn’t trying to pull anything over on them—and actually dared to take an aspirin.
    I was out at the corner waiting for her when she arrived.
    “Today is about information,” Cherabino said and handed me a cup of coffee as I folded into the car. “I’ve got a half day to learn everything I can about Raymond before the forensics come back tomorrow and we figure this out.”
    I buckled up. “How’d you get the forensics done in only two days?” I asked, impressed.
    “You don’t want to know.”
    I instinctively went to read her—and she threw up a shield.
    “Mind to yourself,” she said.
    * * *
    Raymond’s roommate, one George Babel, answered the door in a bulky shirt and ratty sweatpants. His dark complexion was scarred with old acne on the right side of his face, his hair shaved tight against his head, and he was very thin; otherwise he and Raymond could have been brothers, though in the picture Raymond had been muscular, healthy. This kid—from the smell of sugar and energy drinks emanating from him—had been a chair jockey for years, and not a particularly healthy one at that. I also smelled something else . . . something familiar. If I’d been able to feel him in Mindspace, I was betting he’d be strained, hyped up on too much caffeine and other things to quite think straight. But since I couldn’t, I’d have to guess, to guess about everything. It galled.
    “Who are you?” George asked.
    Cherabino flashed her badge again and introduced us. I was a consultant, unspecified, and she a detective, no department given.
    “Do you have a minute?” I asked. “We’d like to talk to you about Raymond Datini.”
    He gripped the wooden door hard. “Yeah. He hasn’t been here. Is he okay?”
    Cherabino focused like a pointer dog going taunt. “Do you have reason to suspect he’s in trouble?”
    “He hasn’t shown up in a long time,” George said. “I mean, the college assigned us to the room, it’s not like we’re friends or anything. We get along. I don’t know where he is.”
    She nodded.
    “Can we come in?” I asked. All the interrogation books claimed people were more likely to tell the truth surrounded by their own things. It was strictly book-knowledge though; mostly I interviewed in the interrogation rooms in the basement of the department.
    “Oh.” He frowned. “Yeah, I guess.” He opened the door.
    The dorm room was small, just large enough for two parallel beds, desks, and two infinitesimal closets. It was also covered in clutter, clothes thrown everywhere, empty pizza boxes, forgotten soda cans and protein cube wrappers, and layers and layers of cheap paper stirred up like in a blender. The smell was of stale sweat, cola, energy drinks, and desiccated food—along with an unpleasant undercurrent of musty . . . something, and more of that faint sweet smell of George’s.
    Cherabino removed a banana peel and perched on a clear spot on the far desk. George took a seat at his own desk, less than four feet from her, and, finally catching up to reality, I leaned against the wall by the door.
    Cherabino didn’t say anything, which meant I was up. I relaxed my body language, opened up my shoulders to seem friendlier, and uncrossed my arms. I even added a small, polite smile. Interviews were my gig, and I was going to do a good job if it killed me. I owed the judge, and I knew it, and finding the man who killed his grandson seemed the least I could reasonably do. Plus the whole jail question. I couldn’t screw this up, and this early in the morning, when I was feeling good, maybe I wouldn’t.
    “How long have you been rooming with Raymond?” I asked George.
    He looked uncomfortable, just a little too tense for the situation, and he kept looking back at Cherabino. “Since May. We both did the summer semester this year.”
    “And you said the college matched you up?”
    “It’s the cheapest housing on campus, and the only one open