Read Last Shot (2006) for Free Online

refuse, a couple royal palms.
    He gestured for a pair of latex gloves, then picked through the trash can. Three balls of tissue unfurled to reveal snot. The other contents were equally enlightening: a few empty Styrofoam cups and lids, two plastic Coke-bottle caps, a shorter string of dental floss, a wad of red gum. He set the can back down and eased to all fours to look under the bed. It took him a moment to identify the delicate blue shavings: rubber gratings from where Walker had whittled the toothbrush against the edge of the metal leg.
    Tim stood, mused for a moment, then rapped his knuckles on the steel platform of the top bunk. "He threw his mattress over the rail?"
    "That's right."
    "He usually participate in stuff like that?"
    Newlin took a moment, reflecting on the question. "We don't have Attica break out that often, but no. Walker's not a joiner. He didn't take part in the May riot."
    "He left his cellie's mattress." Tim crossed the space and crouched, studying the frayed prayer rug of two-ply tissue. "This would've made for good burning, too." He glanced up at the black velvet banner and the postcard of the Sultan Ahmet, its six minarets pushing into a rich blue sky. "And that."
    "So he didn't trash Imaad's stuff," Newlin said. "What's your point?"
    "Seems like a pretty selective temper tantrum."
    Bear beckoned Tim over to a color newsprint photo adhered to the wall by the sink. It was a studio shot of a woman in her thirties, awkwardly posed, fist to chin. Sears, perhaps. Amused, private eyes, angled to the side as if the photographer couldn't hold her attention. Maybe she was self-conscious, but it looked more as if she would've rather been someplace else. A too-slender nose prevented her from being beautiful, but it also added a sharpness to her otherwise even features, conveying an impression of intelligence, of resolve. The lavender retro-eighties Swatch dangling loose from her right wrist matched a pattern repeat in her shirt. Noting that Dray had a similar, Target-bought button-up, Tim pegged the woman's outfit as stylish but basically cheap. The dated hair-cut--short and excessively windswept--and the woman's makeup suggested the photo was from the late nineties.
    "That his girl?" Bear asked.
    "Sister," Newlin said. "She killed herself a few months back."
    Bear jotted this down. "He take it hard?" Tim asked.
    "You wouldn't know with Walker. When the wheels are turning, when they're stuck, you know?"
    "Were they close?"
    "I don't know, really."
    "Given the visitor log," Bear said, "not that close."
    Tim knelt before the footlockers. The top lid creaked back to reveal several kufis, shirts, and toiletries thrown together with a collection of postcards of pilgrimage-class mosques. By contrast, the bottom footlocker was meticulously ordered. Toothpaste, neatly rolled. Shirts and pants folded with military crispness. Some yellowed papers peeked out from beneath a row of socks. Tim withdrew them, finding an obituary and a handwritten letter. The obit's torn top border aligned with the bottom edge of the photo stuck to the wall.
    Tim scanned the brief newspaper write-up. Theresa Sue Jameson (38), born April 1, 1966. Theresa, a Littlerock native, worked as office manager for Westin Dentistry in Canyon Country. Her friends remember her irrepressible spirit. She leaves behind a son, Samuel (7). Services will be held at St. Jude's Church June 12 at 6pm.
    The footer read June 11, Littlerock Weekly.
    As good a way as any to reduce someone's life into one and a half column inches. Tim remembered how his father always worded those he placed, rarely, for old associates to come in under the six-line minimum.
    Bear, reading over Tim's shoulder, remarked, "Regular hotbed of journalistic panache, the Littlerock Weekly."
    It also was a publication of insufficiently wide circulation, Tim figured, to be taken by the Terminal Island library. He tilted the worn rectangle of newspaper and picked up faint indentations in the corner.