The Canton Connection Read Online Free

lipstick. She had a slim figure that was flattered by her jeans, especially while she was running away.
    Why did she turn her attention to him, then try to avoid him?
    He approached the bottom of the valley and heard the gurgle of a broad stream. Several cyclists zipped past on the W&OD trail.
    Why had the blonde come to the funeral?
    Maybe she knew Han Chu and had come to pay her final respects. Maybe her boyfriend worked for the company. Maybe she was just driving past and stopped to see who had died.
    It was possible to explain everything except her hurrying away from him. What did she have to hide?
    His heart quickened when he thought of her involved in any way with the heinous crime.
    Let Red Stokes sort that one out, lucky bastard.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    By the time Jake walked into the office on Monday, he had convinced himself that the case was not for the FBI and certainly not for him.
    There was no indication that the death was a federal crime. The case would never enter the files of the FBI.
    As far as his personal involvement was concerned, after the funeral he had gone home to his apartment, ripped off his suit and tie and stared at the sunlight glinting off his dusty windowsills. Amber had gone to the shore on Saturday and he had been left to ponder the case. In the end, he had missed out on sharing one of the last long weekends of summer with her.
    Now that it was Monday, he was ready to return to the backlog of cases that confronted him.
    His boss had one year’s seniority over Jake, and never failed to remind him of that fact. Bob Snow was prematurely balding and equally driven by his job. He intercepted Jake on the way to his desk and handed him a folder.
    “The case is yours, rookie,” Bob said, using a nickname that had stuck with Jake for the past fifteen years.
    Jake glanced at the folder. The label read “Han Chu.”
    He didn’t understand. What had happened in the short hours since the funeral? “I don’t think this case is for the FBI. Arlington County can handle it.”
    Bob smiled. “Turn to the file on the woman,” he said. “They tracked her down by her license plate. I’ll give you half an hour. Then I have someone coming in to meet you.” He patted Jake on the back, smiled and left.
    Jake was stunned. The case he had told himself he wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t take was suddenly his.
    So what was Bob talking about? What about the woman?
    He had the folder open by the time he closed his office door.
    First he skimmed over the details of Chu’s murder and autopsy. There was nothing new there that he hadn’t already learned from his phone calls and data searches over the weekend.
    Then he opened the profile of the witness.
    He stared at her Department of Motor Vehicles photo as he sat at his desk. She was as lovely as when he had first seen her at the funeral, with a tinge of impatience, perfectly understandable in a DMV photo.
    Then he looked down to read her name: Stacy Stefansson.
    He reviewed a short profile of her, excerpted from a Commerce Department personnel file.
    Apparently she was deep into defense contracting. She had worked for a number of computer firms, but not Quantum.
    She had been an IBM trainee for a couple of years, then moved on to a series of Beltway bandit firms set up around the capital to compete for government contracts.
    So she had the perfect career, with one hand in the government till and the other in private industry.
    Her specialty was data collection and analysis, not one of Jake’s areas of expertise. In truth, he had had a facility with computers since elementary school, but never a fascination.
    His mind was drifting, as it naturally did when the subject of computers came up. He tried to imagine what was behind the quick trajectory of Stacy’s career.
    He could imagine ambition there, as well as a self-confident drive to improve and succeed. But all the while, she was in the database field. It seemed she had been pegged for that role and