suicide pacts

Murphy beamed at me. “Springfield. Head for I-55.”
I grunted. “Kind of out of your jurisdiction.”
“If we were investigating something,” Murphy said. “We’re not. We’re going to the fair.”
I eyed her sidelong. “On a date?”
“Sure, if someone asks,” she said off handedly. Then she froze for a second, and added, “It’s a reasonable cover story.”
“Right,” I said. Her cheeks looked a little pink. Neither of us said anything for a little while.
I merged onto the highway, always fun in a car originally designed to rocket down the Autobahn at a blistering one hundred kilometers an hour, and asked Murphy, “Springfield?”
“State Fair,” she said. “That was the common denominator.”
I frowned, going over the dates in my head. “State Fair only runs, what? Ten days?”
Murphy nodded. “They shut down tonight.”
“But the first couple died twelve days ago.”
“They were both volunteer staff for the fair, and they were down there on the grounds setting up.” Murphy lifted a foot to rest her heel on the edge of the passenger seat, frowning out the window. “I found Skee-Ball tickets and one of those chintzy stuffed animals in the second couple’s apartment. And the Bardalackis got pulled over for speeding on I-55, five minutes out of Springfield and bound for Chicago.”
“So maybe they went to the fair,” I said. “Or maybe they were just taking a road trip or something.”
Murphy shrugged. “Possibly. But if I assume that it’s a coincidence, it doesn’t get me anywhere—and we’ve got nothing. If I assume there’s a connection, we’ve got a possible answer.”
I beamed at her. “I thought you didn’t like reading Parker.”
She eyed me. “That doesn’t mean his logic isn’t sound.”
“Oh. Right.”
She exhaled heavily. “It’s the best I’ve got. I just hope that if I get you into the general area, you can pick up on whatever is going on.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking of walls papered in photographs. “Me, too.”


Brief Cases, Love Hurts, Page 312-313