Cuts Through Bone Read Online Free

crazy?”
    â€œThen you didn’t notice he was crippled?”
    She ate some steak fries. He let her wait for a while before he let her off the hook. “Olsen’s left arm is crippled,” he said. “He never used it, not even once. He’s been practicing that for a long time. Maybe it’s disfigured, or maybe it’s dysfunctional. That’s something he brought back from overseas, I reckon.”
    Vasquez put it together suddenly, why she’d been looking at pointless surveillance videos. She’d been practicing looking for things that she wasn’t looking for. The little detective was willing to waste her time, and his money, seeing if she would learn something that she didn’t even know he was teaching. She was glad Mako’s was dark; maybe he wouldn’t be able to see the look on her face. Three months, and it wasn’t the first time she’d wished she was back in school, where everything was safe and expectations were carefully spelled out. She realized that Guthrie was waiting on her again.
    â€œSo he got wounded in the war,” she said thickly. “He was a soldier.” She paused. “He took it hard that somebody hit her. Maybe he’s got some kind of history with that.”
    â€œSure,” Guthrie said. “And you’re saying you believe he’s clean.”
    â€œI better believe it,” she muttered.
    The little man laughed. “You like him.”
    Vasquez shrugged. “You said you know why he didn’t do it.”
    He scanned the thickening crowd and frowned at the door. “I could be wrong.” They were waiting on someone, and the wait was stretching. “Anyway, he didn’t try to blame anyone. He’s been sitting in a cell for hours, knowing the police say he did it. If he shot her, he would have spent that time thinking up a lie. For him, she was Little Miss Perfect. Nobody could want to kill her—and that’s that.”
    A stream of people slowly filled the bar. Guthrie kept scanning the crowd. At the bar, men shouted indiscriminately at the televisions and one another in an incoherent roar that even music wouldn’t have covered. Three waitresses rushed back and forth with pitchers and platters. Two men emerged from the crowd, snooping among the booths, and Guthrie relaxed. One was older, with a full belly and a haphazard stride, as if he couldn’t decide which part of a sore foot to settle his weight on. Maybe he had walked too far in bad shoes. His hair was ginger and gray; his wire-frame glasses were taped together. An angry younger man trailed him, tall and imposing, with a Dodgers cap set square on his head like a battle flag. The older man spotted Guthrie in the booth and lumbered back to sit down.
    â€œEvening, Guthrie,” he said. He gave Vasquez a puzzled glance. “Where’s Wietz?”
    â€œShe moved on,” the little detective answered. “This’s Rachel Vasquez.” He shrugged, then waved at one of the waitresses, pointing at the pitcher. “This’s Mike Inglewood. He—”
    â€œDon’t listen to him, little girl,” Inglewood said. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I known this one since I was in MTS. He’s no good. He’ll lie to you every time.”
    The younger man sat down and scowled generally at the table. Inglewood raised an eyebrow at him. “I told you she was pretty, and this ain’t even the one I was talking about. But you gotta do better than that—” He turned back to Guthrie. “I told the boy to grow a mustache, and maybe it’d do something to cover that ugly-ass smile.”
    The waitress brought a fresh pitcher and some more fries. Inglewood broke a few more rough jokes to settle himself. His partner, Eric Landry, was new to Major Case, the downtown squad of detectives that worked high-profile crimes in the city. Guthrie and Inglewood had known each other for several