A Deadly Twist by Jeffrey Siger (free novel reading sites .txt) 📕

by the man’s head. “You know what amazes me about so many ex-cops, especially dirty ex-cops? It’s how they think that once they hit their pension years, they’re home free and nothing from their past will ever come back to haunt them.” Andreas fixed his eyes on Bear’s. “Well, guess what? After that little macho performance of yours, permit me to introduce myself differently. I’m the man who’s going to haunt your past, present, and future days for the rest of your life.” Andreas stood up. “Get the fuck up and turn around. Now.”

“Chief, we came here hoping not to arrest him,” said Dimitri.

“I’ve changed my mind.” Andreas’s eyes never left Bear. “I said get up.”

Bear got to his feet. “You guys are wasting your time with this good cop, bad cop routine. I practically invented it.”

“You don’t understand,” said Andreas. “I’m the good cop in all this. You two don’t get along at all, so I came here hoping to find a way to avoid charging you as an accessory to murder, but from the way you’re behaving I think you’ve just become my primary suspect.”

“What murder?”

“Turn around.”

Bear hesitated but turned. Andreas cuffed him and spun him so they were face-to-face.

“What murder, you say? Have you been involved in so many you can’t remember?”

“Stop the bullshit.”

“Sure.” Andreas said Project Manager’s name. “And if that name doesn’t jog your memory, how about this one?” He recited Athena’s full name, including her maiden name and the last names of her three husbands.

Bear’s eyes began to blink and he bit at his lip. “I don’t know any of those names or anything about any murder.”

“Of course you do. You conducted the investigation into Project Manager’s death.” Andreas paused, wondering whether to trust his gut and take a wild-ass leap into the unknown. “And for your efforts in that regard, you’ve been handsomely compensated ever since.” Andreas pointed to the car and the house.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Permit me to describe your current situation more clearly. At present, you’ve got two things going for you. One, you’re not who I’m after, and I don’t even need your testimony. All I need is for you to tell me who was involved in that bogus report and why.”

“I’ve nothing to say.”

“Slow down. You haven’t heard the second thing, which is: no one besides the three of us knows we’re having this conversation. Once we take you in, the whole island will know. And when word gets back to you-know-who, how long do you think it will be before you end up wearing a marble necktie like your buddy Honeyman?” Andreas patted Bear on the shoulder. “You may be gone from the force, but you’re certainly not forgotten by those who fear what you know. Talk to us so that we can get to them before they get to you. It’s your choice.”

A moment passed before Bear spoke. “Can we go inside? I have neighbors, and I don’t want them to see me like this.”

Andreas looked at Dimitri, who nodded, and the two followed Bear as he limped into his house. It was much bigger inside than it looked from the outside. Bear led them down to a room dominated by a wide-screen TV.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes,” said Andreas.

“Could you take off the cuffs?”

“Not yet, talk first.”

Bear dropped onto a sofa with fitted pillows. Andreas stepped forward and pulled Bear to his feet.

“What are you doing?” said Bear.

“Sit over there on that chair.”

“But it’s uncomfortable.”

“Sit.”

Bear sat on the chair, and Andreas took Bear’s former place on the sofa.

“Now talk.”

Bear exhaled. “You got it all wrong. Sure I’ve been getting paid by some folks for things I did for them, but nothing like murder. I wrote that report like I saw it, a simple accident. I only got paid to do what had to be done to keep certain people’s names out of the report.”

“Which people?”

“The old lady’s family.”

“Athena?”

“Yes.”

“But she was dead by then,” said Andreas.

“Yes, but the family was worried something might come out about her history with the man.”

“What history?”

“He did things for her.”

Dimitri jumped in. “Bear, I know when you’re stalling. So get to the point or, so help me, on top of whatever other grief you’re heading for, I’ll have the buildings department all over your ass for all the illegal things you did building this house.”

Bear shut his eyes. “He coordinated her antiquities smuggling. Had been doing it for years.”

“How many years?” said Andreas.

“Since before the war.”

“How old was he?” Andreas put his hands behind him and fidgeted on the sofa.

“In his seventies when he died in the mid-1990s.”

“Did he have a pension like yours?”

“I never got a thing directly from the family. I got a percentage of what Honeyman made off of them.”

“How’d Honeyman figure in this?”

“He’s the one who had me keep their name out of the accident report. The project manager was driving a car registered to one of the family’s companies when it happened.”

“And Honeyman has been paying you ever since?” Andreas shifted again on the sofa.

“I was a cop then. He needed me, for a lot of things, and after I retired I agreed to take less.”

“How noble of you,” said Dimitri.

“No need to be a pig. I didn’t want to risk ending up like the manager.”

“Whoa,” said Andreas, leaning forward, his hands still behind his back. “I thought you said you saw it as a simple accident?”

“I never found any evidence to the contrary, but over the years Honeyman told me things that made me wonder.”

“What sort of things?”

“Honeyman had worked as a laborer for him for a couple of years before the accident, and he’d told Honeyman that Athena was a tough and controlling woman who thought her children weak and arrogant. Her grandchildren even more so. She worried how they’d behave after she was gone, so she made a contract with the manager, employing him for life to manage all the nasty projects that could come back to harm the family name.”

“I assume