The Silent Boy (Emma McPherson Book 1) by A.J. Flynn (early reader books .txt) 📗

McPherson nodded. “Alright. Go ahead and get yourself some breakfast, we’ll take it from here.”

McGill stood up, huffing a little from the exertion. He threw on his coat and hat, then turned to McPherson with a sheepish look on his face. “If you aren’t doing anything tonight, would you mind doing me a favor?”

The request was completely out of character for the big detective. He never bothered to do things for other people, nor expected them to do things for him.

“Sure, if I can,” McPherson answered hesitantly. There was no real telling what she might be getting herself into.

“Well, if you’re near a phone around ten thirty, give me a call, will you? I’ve caught myself oversleeping lately, and when I don’t have enough time to eat, my stomach gives me hell.”

She did her best to suppress her smile, as she thought back to the four roast beef sandwiches McGill had brought with him the night before. “Yeah, I’ll try to remember.”

“All right. Thanks.” He seemed relieved as he left.

McPherson had just begun straightening the papers that were spread out over her desk when McGill returned.

“Forget something?” she asked.

“Yeah. A couple of the patrolmen picked up a guy who was calling the Turner house. The damn fool called something like six times from the same tavern. The phone company did a trace on the call, and they picked him up in the booth. He was plastered and mean as hell. We locked him up. Maybe you can get something out of him. He was threatening to kill the other brother unless the family paid him off.”

“Maybe he’ll confide in me. I’m starting to feel like the long lost soulmate of all the degenerates in town.”

McGill nodded and started off again. This time he made it.

McPherson walked up the stairs to the jail. There was a small room to the side of the corridor that was used to question inmates. She told the guard who she wanted and went in. Within minutes, the guard brought the man in.

The man was squat and fat. His eyes were so buried in his skull that they were nearly invisible. All of his hair was missing, except for a lightly tufted fringe that circled his head, and he was dressed like a day laborer. He was most likely the kind of guy who wanted to be a big man and, once he figured out he couldn’t make it, settled for being mean.

But even in his meanness, he made certain not to pick on anybody that might strike back. His shaking hands betrayed his late night of drinking.

“Sit down,” McPherson said.

“I demand a lawyer,” the man answered sharply.

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to settle for a shyster. No decent lawyer in town is going to want to touch you.”

The man took his seat. “You don’t have nothing on me.”

“Attempted extortion is something.”

“You can’t prove it,” he said confidently.

“Officers make good witnesses, and they listened in outside the phone booth before they cuffed you. The folks down at the tavern aren’t going to like the idea of someone calling up a man whose kid was just murdered and threatening to kill the other one, either. These people don’t take too kindly to that sort of thing.”

The man ran his tongue over his bottom lip. All of a sudden he didn’t look quite so confident.

“You can’t prove anything,” he repeated.

“It says here your name is Holden. Is that right?”

“If that’s what it says, then I guess that’s what it is.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t always follow. Done any time?”

“A little.”

“What for?”

“Vagrancy. I never broke any laws.”

“Where were you two nights ago?”

“Up in Seattle. You can’t pin it on me, because I wasn’t even in your town.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Sure, I can. And won’t you be sorry,” he sneered. “I was visiting my sister.”

“We’ll see what she has to say.”

Holden laughed. “She’ll remember. I was bumming around listening to my brother-in-law tell me what a no good sum bitch I was. After I got my gutfull of him and his ideas, I laid him out, then took off before they could call the cops. I’m sure the whole damn street will remember, he was yapping so loud.”

“Give me your sister’s name and address.”

Holden told her and she wrote it down.

“Once she tells you I wasn’t even in town will you let me out?”

“We’ll have to see how Mr. Turner feels about you threatening his kid.”

Holden tried to give the impression that he was just a careless boy caught up in one of his pranks. “Oh, hell. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just wasted and looking for something to do. I’d never hurt a child.”

“No,” McPherson agreed, “I don’t think you’d have the guts, but what about money? Would you have taken it if the Turners had paid you off?”

Holden didn’t answer.

“I think a man who’s willing to threaten grief-stricken parents with harm would be just fine collecting the money, if it meant he wouldn’t be caught.”

Holden threw off his little-boy act and slumped in his seat. “I want a lawyer.”

“Yeah.” There was nothing to gain by continuing to talk to him, so McPherson called for the guard.

“He wants to speak with a lawyer. Let him, then lock him up.”

The guard nodded and led Holden down the hallway to where the pay phone was.

People like Holden are one of humanity’s many irritants, but they existed and there was nothing to do about it besides accept it. McPherson had never been able to make up her mind about whether they were people who wanted too much and weren’t willing to accept less, or people who didn’t want anything and decided to do their best to see that nobody else had anything either.

She walked back downstairs. She wanted to get back to work, but there was a problem: she didn’t know where to start.

McPherson had just sat down at her desk when the desk officer heralded her. She stood up reluctantly and walked over to him.

“We’ve got