Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

can’t prove it.”
    She blew out an impatient breath. He was right and she knew it. She just didn’t like it. “Now what?”
    “Shapiro.”
    “Another lying sack of shit?”
    Shane didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His thin smile said it all.

Chapter 43
    Las Vegas
    November 4
    Early afternoon
    I an had seen enough dried blood to know what it looked like. Not that you had to be some kind of twenty-first-century Dick Tracy to figure out that the partial handprint on the side wall of the shoe-repair shop was organic and fairly recent. Even though the blood was dark rusty red and sun-struck, the flies were all over it, so he was sure it wasn’t some graffiti artist’s sprayed statement of urban anomie. There was a palm-size puddle of dried blood on the cracked pavement of the alley, too, as though someone had leaned there, gathering strength to cross the street.
    Six doors down the alley, a uniformed cop was stringing yellow tape over the back of a crime scene. The bad news was that Ian couldn’t track the blood back to its source without giving himself away. The good news was that the crime tape didn’t leave much doubt about the source.
    Since the cop didn’t notice Ian looking down the alley, Ian just kept on walking until he reached the end of the block and could see down the main street. There was yellow tape all over one storefront. Several squad cars were double-parked in front. So was an ambulance. A white news van with a satellite feed sitting on its roof like a big soup dish waited curbside in front of the ambulance. Two plainclothes cops talked with a cameraman and a reporter who were leaning against the news van, waiting for a photo op.
    Ian walked up to the uniformed cop who was guarding the front entrance. “Heart attack?” he asked.
    The cop gave him a look. “What’s it to you?”
    “Nothing, so long as it isn’t one of these two people.” Ian pulled out the two photos. “Is it?”
    The cop glanced down at the photos. “What do you want them for?”
    “Missing person, nonsuspicious disappearance. Left her husband and kids back on the farm and came here to make her fortune. Her grandmother won’t give up looking for her, which is fine for me.” Ian flashed his trust-me smile. “Pays the rent. The guy may or may not be her most recent live-in.”
    The cop took another look at the photos. “This part of town is my beat. I know the hookers and the drunks and the regulars. Don’t recognize either one of them.”
    “Thanks anyway. I’ll try up and down the street. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
    The rattle of gurney wheels announced the ambulance crew a few seconds before they rolled out into the streaming sunlight. A dark body bag was strapped to the white sheet over the thin mattress. The way the bag moved announced that rigor mortis wasn’t a problem any longer.
    “Hey, wait!” called the cameraman, hurrying over. “Back it up and come out again, okay?”
    One of the detectives yelled after the cameraman, “You think anyone in Vegas gives a shit about slime like Joey Cline?”
    “It’s a corpse, ain’t it?” said the cameraman. “Give us a minute and do it again, okay?”
    The ambulance crew shrugged. It wasn’t like it made any difference to their patient. “Yeah, sure. Dude’s been dead for probably a day. Few more minutes won’t matter.”
    Ian waited near the satellite truck, hoping to overhear something else useful. No such luck.
    By the time he faded into the edges of the thin knot of people that had gathered, the ambulance crew was making its third run-through for the “live film at six o’clock.” The on-air reporter checked the smooth blond helmet of his hair, straightened his suit coat and tie, took his place by the front door of the pawnshop, and began talking into a mike for the third time. One of the detectives stood to his right, not blocking the camera’s view of the scene and the reporter.
    “This is Ralph Metcalfe at the scene of a brutal murder just moments away from Glitter Gulch. According to the police, Mr. Joseph Cline was found in a pool of his own blood in the back of his store. Another bloody spot indicated that a second man, possibly his attacker, had been lying on the floor. The whereabouts of the second man is unknown.” He turned to face the cop. “Detective Yarrow, does the Las Vegas Police Department have any leads on this bloody and terrible murder?”
    Ian was around the corner and out of sight before the detective got his