Operation Whiplash Read Online Free Page A

put my feet. Blood had dripped onto the floor. I didn’t want to leave footprints in the crust. At closer range I could see that the dead man bore cruel face-cuts as well as the gruesome throat-slash. Nobody sits quietly in a swivel chair for that kind of treatment. Nate Pepperman had been held from behind while the knife-wielder performed from one side.
    There was an underlying odor in the office. I connected it with the body at first, but then I recognized it. It was the smell of cordite. I stood beside the brutally slashed body of Hazel’s financial consultant while I scanned the deeper shadows in the room.
    Again I knew what I was going to see before I saw it. The door of the office safe dangled drunkenly from one twisted hinge. Papers were scattered on the floor. The knife-wielders had blown the box and cleaned it out, discarding items of no value.
    Not for a minute did I believe that Nate Pepperman had unluckily walked in upon a safecracking. That wouldn’t account for the condition of his face. I touched his shirt-sleeved arm. There was no give to it. Rigor mortis was well advanced. How had he remained undiscovered in his office for so long?
    Robin had said that Hazel was in the office with Nate on Wednesday morning. She had found me on Friday evening. We had driven part of that night and most of Saturday. Today. Yesterday, rather. It was now two A.M . Sunday. If Nate had been murdered Friday night, it was possible no one would miss him on Saturday.
    A dozen thoughts flickered through my mind as I stood in the murky, foul-smelling office, but one stood up and begged for attention:
Where was Hazel?
Where had she been since she checked out of the Lazy Susan? Where was she now? Did she know anything about this slaughterhouse of an office?
    I had no answers.
    I hadn’t really pressed Robin before about the circumstances of Hazel’s asking her to find me. Perhaps something had been said in Pepperman’s office when they were all together that would give me a starting place to look for Hazel.
    I needed a starting place.
    I backed out of the office, doubly careful to touch nothing. A visit to Robin at the Lazy Susan might get me started. I crept down the stairway and reconnoitered the street. A lone pedestrian was crossing the square. There were no moving vehicles in sight. I eased onto the sidewalk and walked unhurriedly to the Ford.
    The Lazy Susan Motel was south of town. In the middle of the next block I hit the brake and sat there with the motor running. Above the dime-to-a-dollar variety store across the street there was a light on in another second-floor office. It was a real estate agency run by a young fellow named Jed Raymond, a self-declared country boy with a quick wit and a keen mind.
    Jed had been my best male friend in Hudson, but I’d almost killed him before I left. Ordinary common sense dictated that I couldn’t approach Jed Raymond. He was a part-time deputy sheriff, for one thing. That was why he almost got killed.
    But he’d also been Hazel’s friend.
    He’d been the one who introduced me to her.
    He had seemed pleased when we paired off.
    More importantly, if anyone knew Hazel’s present whereabouts in Hudson, it was likely to be Jed Raymond.
    I pulled over to the curb and parked again. I slid out of the Ford, crossed the street, and climbed the stairs. This time I made no effort to move quietly. When I reached the landing, I tapped lightly on the black-lettered, frosted window in the door.
    A minute went by and nothing happened.
    Could Jed have a girl in the office?
    I tapped again.
    I heard the shuffle of feet finally, and the door opened a crack. “Yes?” Jed’s familiar drawl inquired.
    “Not married yet, I see,” I said. “No wife would put up with this kind of hours.”
    Jed opened the door wider to peer out at me. “You seem to have the advantage of me, friend, if you’re sayin’ you know me,” he said at last.
    “Where’s all that famous Southern hospitality?” I said.