The Pawnbroker

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Book: Read The Pawnbroker for Free Online
Authors: Aimée Thurlo
DuPree,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can get anything on Henderson from some of the other databases I can access.”
    â€œSounds like a plan. Do you have an update on how Gina’s doing?”
    â€œHer vitals are coming around and both lungs are functioning. She’s in recovery now.”
    â€œCall me if you can when she wakes up.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAnything from the crime scene team you can share?”
    â€œNot yet, but the bullet that struck Gina was removed and has been turned over to our lab. I heard it was a thirty-eight hollow point, but they should be able to confirm that in a few hours,” she said.
    â€œAnything on Baza?”
    â€œNothing new. The Office of the Medical Investigator isn’t in such a hurry with the dead,” she said. “Gotta go. If you learn anything new, call.”
    â€œSure. Bye.”
    â€œAt least it sounds like good news on Gina,” Gordon said, sipping the last of his coffee from his Lobo mug. “A thirty-eight revolver—a good choice for an amateur hit. Cheap and easy to obtain in this country, simple to use, and deadly enough without overpenetration. If you can’t do the job on one target with six rounds up close, hire it out.”
    â€œSounds about right. Witnesses described a revolver.” Charlie stood. “Now let’s see if we can find what Eddie was looking for. I don’t remember any Rolex, though.”
    â€œNeither do I. Everything he said might have been on-the-spot bullshit. There’s no way he would have gotten a thousand bucks on a pawn, even with a high-end watch and a couple of rings. I may be new at this, but even I know that a realistic loan wouldn’t top more than two hundred maybe, even with the rings. Now if he’d have sold them outright…,” Gordon said.
    â€œThen he would have had to buy his collateral back for a lot more, especially if he let the loan date expire or missed a payment. Pawn interest is a killer. Either way, there should be a record of the transaction around here somewhere.” Charlie stepped around the counter and used a key to open one of the drawers where they kept the ring displays after-hours.
    â€œIf not, then Eddie was lying. He sure gathered a lot of intelligence on Baza and this place, more than necessary for a burglary,” Gordon said, opening a drawer containing current paper invoices on pawned goods.
    â€œYeah, and I’m getting some bad vibes on Eddie’s background. If he went to school here, there should have been a record, even if he was homeschooled. We’re new at this investigation crap, but we should have at least yanked off his gloves and gotten some prints. And checked out his car,” Charlie lamented, looking through the rings for something like Eddie had described.
    â€œToo late now. It still leads back to the original question, what was he doing here? If he’d wanted to rob the place, why not go straight to the jewelry and electronics, or the guns? Why bother searching in file cabinets?” Gordon said. “He hasn’t gone through anything here, at least that I can tell.”
    Charlie locked the ring drawer and came out from behind the counter. “He may have been trying to find keys to the displays, or something in one of the folders. We need to know for sure. You think he’s going to stick around his old address and call on Saturday? If he does, that’ll at least tell us something. You notice how his mood kept changing, from terrified to dead calm, then attitude? He’s either mostly telling us the truth, or trying to play us, making up a story as he goes along.”
    Charlie walked over to the office door next and looked inside at the stacks of folders, now scattered randomly across the joined desks.
    â€œHe’s playing with the wrong guys, then. Hey, now that you’re in the office, you wanna start on the transaction records? I’ll take

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