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Chapter 1
Accessory after the fact Principal to ree End of life as I know it Death row
Those thoughts ricocheted through ed a half-dozen photos on the diner table between us I took a sip of iced tea in an attempt to cover my shock It didn’t matter one bit that Pellini pointed to a man front and center in one of the photos rather than the hazy figures in the background My entire focus locked onto the distant blurry iht on camera seconds before the execution-style murder of James Macklin Farouche, as I stood shoulder to shoulder with the equally blurry killer
My eyes slid to the other photos—all most likely taken with cell phone caed bands of color h People running Faces full of panic and fear Strange purple fire on rubble
And then there were the details that only someone who’d been at the scene would be able to identify A circle twenty feet across of charred grass A pond stea boiled away The melted remains of a tablet computer
Pellini tapped thered hair and a ripple of photographic distortion through his face “Angus McDunn,” he said “He’s still at large with no sightings”
I pushed asideto the hope that Pellini couldn’t possibly recognize ht-hand man,” I said, oh-so-coolly “I’ve seen him on the news” Up close and personal, too Only a feeeks ago McDunn had held a MAC-10 subun on me as motivation to have a conversation with his boss
The booth seat creaked beneath Pellini’s bulk as he shifted “Yeah, but here’s the kicker,” he said “McDunn is Boudreaux’s stepfather”
“
You’re shitting me” I stared at Pellini and pushed down my selfish worries about pesky murder trials Detective Marcel Boudreaux was Pellini’s partner, a weaselly piece of work I’d had the displeasure of knowing for years Yet even though Boudreaux ranked right below Pellini on ht stature and surly attitude, he already caught more than his fair share of crap froh-profile case, and things were sure to get ugly
“Serious as a heart attack,” Pellini said He swiped a piece of sausage through the mustard on his plate and popped it into his mouth A speck of yellow bobbed on his mustache as he chewed and sed
“Da up?”
“Coping by concentrating on finding Farouche’s killer,” Pellini said “He’s obsessed”