The Husband Read Online Free Page B

tough case to solve.”
    “‘Blood crieth unto me from the ground,’ Mr. Rafferty,” said the detective, apparently quoting someone. “‘Blood crieth unto me from the ground.’”
    Mitch watched Taggart walk away.
    Then he looked at the grass under his feet.
    The progress of the sun had put the palm-frond shadows behind him. He stood in light, but was not warmed by it.

5
    T he dashboard clock was digital, as was Mitch’s wristwatch, but he could hear time ticking nonetheless, as rapid as the
click-click-click
of the pointer snapping against the marker pegs on a spinning wheel of fortune.
    He wanted to race directly home from the crime scene. Logic argued that Holly would have been snatched at the house. They would not have grabbed her on the way to work, not on a public street.
    They might unintentionally have left something behind that would suggest their identity. More likely, they would have left a message for him, further instructions.
    As usual, Mitch had begun the day by picking up Iggy at his apartment in Santa Ana. Now he had to return him.
    Driving north from the fabled and wealthy Orange County coastal neighborhoods where they worked, toward their humbler communities, Mitch switched from the crowded freeway to surface streets, but encountered traffic there, as well.
    Iggy wanted to talk about the murder and the police. Mitch had to pretend to be as naively excited by the novelty of the experience as Iggy was, when in fact his mind remained occupied with thoughts of Holly and with worry about what might come next.
    Fortunately, as usual, Iggy’s conversation soon began to loop and turn and tangle like a ball of yarn unraveled by a kitten.
    Appearing to be engaged in this rambling discourse required less of Mitch than when the subject had been the dead dogwalker.
    “My cousin Louis had a friend named Booger,” Iggy said. “The same thing happened to him, shot while walking a dog, except it wasn’t a rifle and it wasn’t a dog.”
    “Booger?” Mitch wondered.
    “Booker,” Iggy corrected. “B-o-o-k-e-r. He had a cat he called Hairball. He was walking Hairball, and he got shot.”
    “People walk cats?”
    “The way it was—Hairball is cozy in a travel cage, and Booker is carrying him to a vet’s office.”
    Mitch repeatedly checked the rearview and side mirrors. A black Cadillac SUV had departed the freeway in their wake. Block after block, it remained behind them.
    “So Booker wasn’t actually
walking
the cat,” Mitch said.
    “He was walking
with
the cat, and this like twelve-year-old brat, this faucet-nosed little dismo, shot Booker with a paint-ball gun.”
    “So he wasn’t killed.”
    “He wasn’t quashed, no, and it was a cat instead of a dog, but Booker was totally blue.”
    “Blue?”
    “Blue hair, blue face. He was fully pissed.”
    The Cadillac SUV reliably remained two or three vehicles behind them. Perhaps the driver hoped Mitch wouldn’t notice him.
    “So Booker’s all blue. What happened to the kid?” Mitch asked.
    “Booker was gonna break the little dismo’s hand off, but the kid shot him in the crotch and ran. Hey, Mitch, did you know there’s a town in Pennsylvania named Blue Balls?”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “It’s in Amish country. There’s another town nearby called Intercourse.”
    “How about that.”
    “Maybe those Amish aren’t as square as Cheez-Its, after all.”
    Mitch accelerated to cross an intersection before the traffic light phased to red. Behind him, the black SUV changed lanes, sped up, and made it through on the yellow.
    “Did you ever eat an Amish shoofly pie?” Iggy asked.
    “No. Never did.”
    “It’s full-on rich, sweeter than six Gidget movies. Like eating molasses. Treacherous, dude.”
    The Cadillac dropped back, returned to Mitch’s lane. Three vehicles separated them once more.
    Iggy said, “Earl Potter lost a leg eating shoofly pie.”
    “Earl Potter?”
    “Tim Potter’s dad. He was diabetic, but he didn’t know it, and