Scent of Evil Read Online Free

up, park haphazardly near the curb, and struggle to get his massive bulk and tape recorder out of the radio station’s undersized car in one failed fluid movement. His eyes focused on me like a dog’s on dinner.
    “Joe,” he shouted cheerfully.
    I waved to him and heard Katz’s quiet groan. That gave me a gentle pang of pleasure. McDonald was a good old boy, born and raised in Brattleboro, as faithful to the town and its denizens as he was to the flag, and a throwback to the less complicated days I’d been thinking of mere moments ago. In his hourly four-minute news spots, he pretty much reported what he saw and what we told him, with no hype and no prejudicial inflections, which to me was eminently acceptable. Katz had once told me he thought McDonald was a dim-witted, stoolie woodchuck, the last part of which was a derogatory name given local rural folk. Katz was from Connecticut, which we woodchucks saw as a condemnation speaking for itself.
    I waited for Ted to join us, enjoying Katz’s heightening but resigned disgust.
    McDonald’s face was beet red and dripping with sweat. He began fumbling with his tape recorder but stopped when I shook my head. “Sorry, Ted, it’s still too early. We’ve found a body behind the retaining wall, but we haven’t even finished digging it up. We have no who, when, how, or why to give you.”
    Katz gave a condescending smile to the older reporter. “It’s obviously a murder—they just haven’t determined the cause.”
    McDonald’s face brightened, but I smiled and shook my head. “Don’t let him jerk you around. Nobody’s said it was a murder—right now, it’s an unexplained death.”
    Katz fell in beside me as I set off to rejoin Klesczewski. “But he was murdered, right?” Ted lumbered silently behind, noisily pushing buttons on his machine.
    “We don’t know that.”
    “You think he died of natural causes and buried himself? Very considerate.”
    “It’s early on, Stanley. Once we’ve exhumed the body and the medical examiner has had a chance to take a look, we or the state’s attorney’s office will issue a statement.”
    “How was he killed?” Ted asked.
    “We’ve got a hand sticking out of the dirt. We’d like to see the rest of the body first.”
    “So he was killed.” Katz smiled.
    “He’s dead—that’s all we know. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know how he died, and we don’t know if he was killed. We don’t know anything at the moment.”
    “So what are you doing now?”
    We were halfway across the bridge, which sloped steeply from Canal to the Whetstone Brook’s low north bank. Below us, Klesczewski had already jumped the guardrail at the far end of the bridge and was sidestepping down to the edge of the river. I let out a sigh. The sun and the conversation were giving me a headache. “I’m trying to patiently explain that I have nothing to say.”
    Katz tried a more benign approach. “How about off the record? What does the guy look like? What did Dunn have to say?”
    “Nothing. I’m not ducking you, guys. I just don’t have anything.”
    “How about the age of the body? I mean, is it half rotted or does it look fresh?”
    I lifted one leg over the guardrail in order to join Klesczewski. “I got to go to work. Talk to you later.”
    Ted, who by now had gotten the message and was undoing all his button pushing, muttered, “Thanks, Joe.”
    Katz made to follow me.
    I placed my hand gently against his chest. “Where’re you going, Stanley?”
    I half expected some small lecture on the rights of a free press, but even Katz had grown beyond that. Besides, we both knew the unwritten rules of the game, and despite our sparring we observed them. He gave me an infectious grin. “Thought I’d go fishing?”
    I shook my head, unable to suppress a smile myself. “Nice try.”
    I left him on the street and climbed down the bank to where Klesczewski was moodily staring at the water, waiting. “So—what have you