Highway Landing

He ambled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face with both hands.

The two-bedroom apartment he occupied was only two blocks back from the ocean in a stucco horseshoe shaped complex. His balcony overlooked Nick's Seafood Restaurant and Raw Bar. The rent was damn steep but for an apartment it was par for the area. He had a sofa, love seat, and a TV that his mother had given him when he moved out of her house years ago. He won his formal dining room table and hutch in a business card drawing at Cal's Pizza only a year ago. He had planned to sell it on Ebay, but there it sat. It was the only new piece of furniture he owned.

His first call of the day would have to be to Brad. He wanted to set up something and pick his friend's brain. If people really did talk too much, he wanted to know it all. But before doing that, he snatched up the newspaper from the welcome mat just outside his door. He thumbed through the headlines as he waited for his black coffee to cool off.

There was no follow up piece in the newspaper on the death of Michael Gallager. It had been over a week since the accident and no follow-ups told John that as far as the local media was concerned the accident really was an accident - nothing more to see here folks. Or, the private eye thought warily, that was what the police were feeding their contact reporter. No one wants to read about a genuine accident over and over. They just want to know if the victim is recovering well or not. If there were an accident with the hint of foul play involved then usually five or six spin-off pieces would follow telling about the victim, suspects, and possible motives.