Part 2

Riley Morgan came tumbling through the door of Stone Stevens’ office, the words falling out of his mouth almost as quickly. “There’s nothing! No info at all about what Forsharpe had been doing there. I can’t even figure out what case he was on. There’s no record of him even being here for the last eighteen months.”
Stevens, hardened and cynical as ever let out a sarcastic, “Great. Who was over him on the case?”
“Apparently it was Tom Howard but I can’t get a hold of him because he’s on vacation and didn’t leave a number to reach him.”
“How very convenient. Look, I’m afraid there’s a police leak on this one. We have to plug it as quickly as we can so I want you keeping it on the down low. It might even be that Howard himself is involved.”
“My mother always said to never trust a man with two first names.”
“That’s interesting advice, Morgan, considering you have two first names.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I’ve had a little better luck. This morning I had a talk with Loretta Jolie, the waitress at the Black Mask, the bar across the street. She left at about 3:00 AM and said she heard a car loudly backfire. My guess is that was our gunshot.”
Morgan replied excitedly, “Did she happen to see the car?”
“She got a passing glance. She said the car was a dark color- black or navy probably. She doesn’t know the make or model but she said it was really nice- a Cadi or a Lexus or something. Two people in the car- a blonde woman driving and man in the passenger seat. He was on the far side of the street so she didn’t get a good look at him but she says she could probably identify the woman. Naturally, a license plate was too much to ask.”
“So what’s your take?”
“Hard to say for sure. But we do have a better timeframe now- it happened right around 3 AM. Woman driving who we can identify. That means the man knocked off Forsharpe. And if we find the woman, we can find the man. I’m having Jolie look over a few lineups just in case we get lucky. In the meantime, I want you to go check with forensics and see if they’ve got anything on the bullet yet.”
Morgan left and Stevens passed the next couple hours filling out the blasted paperwork that you don’t see on the TV cop shows. Stevens hated paperwork but it was stuff he couldn’t pass on to Morgan. Just as he was finishing up and looking to take a much-deserved coffee break, a soft, quiet woman in a large shapeless charcoal coat crept into his office. She stood across from Stevens’ desk hunched over, her light blonde hair obscuring her face. She brushed it back and looked Stevens straight in the eye. She had a simple, modest but lovely look to her- the face of a woman who was beautiful but didn’t realize it.
Stevens straightened up and tried to assess the situation. Before he could get a word out she removed a gun from the oversized coat’s pocket. Instinct took over and Stevens knocked over the desk spilling his papers and pens across the room. He reached for his holster and pulled his gun, pointing it defensively in front of him.
A shot thundered through the tiny office and the soft, quiet woman fell to the floor in a heap. A dark red pool appeared and spread, staining her light blonde hair. Stevens ducked behind his overthrown desk, his gun still out and ready. He cautiously peered out the window in fear. Stevens was not the one who fired the shot….