Primed for Murder by Jack Ewing

own sweaty neck to protect. He centered the body on the rug, lined it lengthwise on the white marble rectangle. The tomb belonged to a merchant named Jonas Adams who died in 1847, according to figures, once deeply chiseled, now soft-edged and timeworn.
    Toby felt he should mumble something over the body, a message of farewell, at least. But no comforting words came. What could he say? He didn’t even know the man’s name. Or why he’d been killed. Or who’d killed him. He didn’t know lots of things that might be important for sorting out this whole business.
    “My only connection with you,” Toby whispered to the corpse, “is that somebody fobbed you off on me. I’ve had to work like hell to get rid of you.”
    What a thing to send after someone bound for the next world!
    “You’re dead. I’m still kicking, and I’m plenty pissed.” Now that he thought about it, he really was angry. His face felt flushed and his heart was racing. He was as alert and energetic as if he’d had fifty cups of coffee. The beer made him bold.
    “Mister, I promise you, somebody’s going to pay for roping me into this. I’m going to find out what happened. People are going to be in big trouble. Maybe you’ll be revenged, after all.” Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he formed a sloppy sign of the cross over the body. “Sleep well, friend.”
    Toby backed away towards the truck. Was it his imagination, a trick of uncertain light, or did the old dead man appear to be smiling?

Chapter 9
    Too wired to return home and hit the sack, too loaded to care what might happen next, Toby shucked the overly warm coveralls. He climbed into his truck, chugged a beer, let loose a loud belch. He started the engine. At the far end of the cemetery, he swung right, northeast, toward the Puterbaugh place. “Let’s see what they’re up to.” They’d caused him problems. Maybe he could return the favor.
    On the way, he stuffed the bloody newspapers into a dumpster full of worse stuff behind a fish market. A few blocks farther he wadded the stained drop cloth into an overflowing Salvation Army collection bin in the parking lot of a darkened, decrepit strip mall. Now, everything that could incriminate him—except the papers in his oven and he wasn’t yet sure what to do with them—was taken care of.
    He could almost envision events as they would unfold. The body would be discovered today or tomorrow for sure. Somebody taking a shortcut or chasing a stray Frisbee or bringing flowers to a long-dead relative or caretaking the cemetery grounds was bound to stumble across it. Cops would be called. They’d investigate and figure right away the man hadn’t been killed in the graveyard. Dixon and French would hear about it, learn that the corpse and the rug he lay on matched the description Toby had given them. Then what? “They’ll talk to the Puterbaughs.” Toby cruised dark, silent streets. “And they’ll talk to me.”
    He’d have to make up a reasonable story and stick to it. Maybe he should have buried the man, after all. Then the whole problem would be out of sight, out of mind.
    No, even underground the body would continue to gnaw at him like a zombie. It was better this way: out in the open to shake things up, make things happen. “I’m innocent, so I have nothing to worry about. But other people are going to start sweating soon.”
    A couple blocks south of Charbold Street, Toby parked. The Puterbaughs might recognize the truck, even in the dark, especially if they were the ones who had unloaded the body on him. He left the truck behind a light-colored compact sedan wearing a fine layer of dust—in which some sidewalk wag had written with a finger WASH ME on the hood. The car had a couple parking tickets tucked under the driver’s windshield wiper.
    Toby walked north until he found the alley he was looking for, turned down it, but stopped after a few feet.
    A car colored black by night was parked along the fence behind the