Page 56 of Deathmarch

“I’ll come. I want to see what you do.”

“Thanks?”

Her dubious tone and clear lack of enthusiasm made him smile. “No need to break out in song from excitement.”

“I don’t usually have people I personally know in the audience. I don’t know how that will make me feel. Maybe I’ll be self-conscious.”

“I doubt it. You were always a natural on stage. And I’ve watched you before in plenty of high school plays.”

“Also…I don’t know if I trust you yet. What if you’re coming to laugh at me? If you heckle me, Harper Finnegan, so help me God… I won’t be wearing Calamity Jane’s cowboy boots, but Annie Oakley’s high-tops can still kick plenty of ass.”

Harper was swallowing a laugh as another call pinged on his phone. He missed old Allie, but he liked this new Allie with her sharp tongue just as much. He glanced at the screen.Mike.

“I have to go. Police business,” he told Allie. “See you tonight. What do you consider heckling, exactly?”

“Harper!”

As she hung up on him, he switched to the other call. “What is it?”

“Found the victim’s car,” Mike said, his tone brimming with as much self-satisfaction as if he’d invented a beer that tasted better than Guinness.

“Where?”

“About a mile past where Allie Bianchi’s Chevy spun out. Looks like Lamm’s Toyota did the same. It’s overturned in the ditch. Snow covered it right up.”

“No passersby called it in all this time?”

“Was mostly buried in snow until today, I guess. Didn’t help that it’s white.”

Harper shrugged into his coat. “On my way.”

The car would hold DNA evidence from the killer. If the guy shed as much as a strand of hair, the lab would find it. They had him.

The temperature had inched up to the midforties outside, downright balmy compared to the first half of the week. Not roll-your-window-down kind of weather, but it did hold a promise that spring might sashay forth at one point, dressed in her gown of green. In the meanwhile, the melting snow turned the pretty little town of Broslin into a mud pit.

Everybody was out on the road, running whatever chores they’d postponed due to bad weather the past few days. Plus, Harper’s cruiser always slowed traffic right down. Fact of life: people saw a police car, they stepped on the brake, whether they’d been speeding or not.

Harper passed the town limit, then the telephone pole he’d tied police tape to, to mark where Allie had slid into that snowbank. Another mile down the road, there was Mike’s cruiser, and as Harper pulled over behind it, he saw Mike too, standing next to the overturned Camry.

Mike lowered the department’s crime scene camera. “Took pictures of the outside. Wanted to wait for you to open her up.”

“Thanks.” Harper straddled the worst of the mud on the bottom of the ditch.

“Hey, listen to this. A horse falls into a hole in the ground.” Mike said. “His chicken friend runs off, grabs the farmer’s fancy new Silverado, and tows him out.” He grinned. “Next day, they’re walking again, and wouldn’t you know it, this time it’s the chicken that falls in. The horse just straddles the hole, hangs his dick in there, and pulls her out, easy.” He grinned wider. “You know what the moral of the story is?”

“Do I want to?”

“When you have a big dick, you don’t need a fancy truck to impress chicks.” Mike laughed so hard, he snorted.

“Damn, Officer McMorris, that’s almost funny.” Harper jumped into the ditch. There was no help for it. He was going to get muddy. “Where do you get all this stuff?”

“Jokes stick to me. I hear one, I remember it.”

Harper shook his head. “Tow truck?”

“Billy said he’d be here in about twenty minutes.” Mike turned back to the Toyota. “What do you think happened?”

Harper thought it over. He’d liked Allie’s theory the night before, but this new development changed things.