Spell Blind by David B. Coe Page A

that at all.”
    “Then what?”
    I bit into my slice of pizza and chewed.
    Billie frowned and took a bite, staring right back at me, like we were kids daring each other to be the first to blink.
    “Do you like prying into other people’s lives?” I asked after some time, breaking a lengthy silence and reaching for a second slice of pizza.
    “That’s not what I do. I give people information. I tell stories about real-life situations. And occasionally I uncover truths that powerful people would prefer to keep hidden.”
    “That’s what you think you’re doing now, isn’t it?”
    She hesitated. “Yes, I guess it is.”
    “I think you’re going for the cheap thrill. I think what you’re doing here with me is no different from what the tabloids do, or what you see on those cheesy news shows that come on TV after the real news.”
    From the way she responded you would have thought that I’d slapped her. Her mouth was open in a little ‘o’ and her eyes were so wide I thought she might cry. But that look only lasted for the span of a heartbeat or two. Then she pressed her lips into a thin hard line and the muscles in her jaw tightened. It’s funny, but I didn’t notice until that instant that her eyes were vivid green and as hard as emeralds.
    “You know what I think, Mister Fearsson?” Her voice had gone cold. She wasn’t trying to charm a story out of me anymore. “I think that all the stuff they wrote about you when you left the force was true. You’re a drunk or an addict, or you’re just too unreliable to serve in the PPD. I think you deserved what happened to you.”
    Others had said much worse to me. People I’d known for years, fellow cops who I’d respected. Her insults came too late and from too great a distance to hurt.
    I put down what was left of the slice I’d been eating, took one last sip of Coke, and wiped my face with a napkin. Then I slid out of the booth and stood.
    “Thanks for dinner.”
    I didn’t wait for an answer. And she didn’t try to stop me from leaving.
    I went back to my office, intending to do a bit of billing work from my last few cases. I’d let it pile up, and I was still stewing over my conversation with Billie. This seemed as good a time as any to tackle a few mindless tasks. My hands were shaking, I was so mad. But I knew that would pass.
    The answer machine was blinking—two messages. The first was from Kona and had come in around the time Billie and I were sitting down to eat:
    “Hi, partner. Just got a call from Pete. The Deegan autopsy didn’t turn up anything too surprising. Cause of death is ‘sudden, trauma-induced cardiac arrest,’ just like the others. It’ll be a day or two before the toxicology report comes back, but Pete’s convinced that Claudia was high on Spark when she died. Otherwise, nothing new. Our friend doesn’t change much from killing to killing. Let me know what you found out from Robby. Bye.”
    “Sudden, trauma-induced cardiac arrest.” I’d never heard the phrase before Gracia Rosado’s death. Now it had become a morbid joke I shared with Kona. Basically, it was the medical examiner’s way of saying “something really bad happened and it killed her.”
    The second message was from Howard Wriker, who wanted to know if I’d learned anything yet about the drugs Claudia had been using. I wasn’t ready to tell him or the Deegans anything. I felt no need to protect Robby Sommer, but the last thing Kona needed was for the Deegans to be breathing down her neck about Robby, when we had no solid proof that he’d been involved in any way with Claudia’s murder. Hearing his voice did remind me though, that I needed to tell Kona that Robby had been running a Spark den over in the South Mountain District. She couldn’t arrest him on the little evidence I had for her, but she could pass the word to narcotics and they could keep an eye on him.
    I called Kona at her home. Margarite answered, gave me a big hello, and insisted that I