The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479406111
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!». Краткое содержание книги:
Charlie’s first wife had accidentally killed herself nearly ten years ago, rushing home from a bridge game late one icy afternoon. Laura had never married, never had much chance to know men, for that matter.
She and Charlie had met prosaically enough in a supermarket. They were, he guessed, prosaic people. Laura was no raving beauty, though she was well built and had a pleasant face framed in brown hair. Charlie was a tall, pleasant-looking man, a little on the thin side, who looked as if he worked long hours at a desk in a large office, which was exactly the case.
The old man’s strenuous objections had marred what should have been one of life’s more perfect moments. Charlie had regretted this more for Laura’s sake than his own. He’d figured he understood the old man and was old enough himself to overlook the shortcomings of a close, demanding in-law.
But now, after only a few weeks of marriage, Charlie wasn’t so sure. There was a point where churlishness became too barbed for comfort, where a martyred air of being persecuted permeated the whole house.
Charlie napped finally, awoke too quickly, and dragged through the day. Driving home, he hoped Laura’d had a chance to catch a nap this afternoon. She’d looked plenty bushed when he left the house this morning.
Old man Emmons was in the living room, cackling toothlessly at a TV run of an old W. C. Fields comedy. Charlie spoke cordially, and the old man speared him with a look from his cavernous eyes. “You back?”
Charlie let it pass. “Where is Laura?”
“Gone to the store,” the old man said. “Can’t you keep still while the movie’s on?”
With a sigh and shake of his head, Charlie passed through the house, crossed the rear yard and entered the garage. He was outfitting a wood-working shop, using one side of the garage. The place was chilly. He turned on the butane heater and began to tinker with a drill press, setting it in position and bolting it down.
He was spending more and more time out here, he realized. The thought caused him to drop his wrench, sit on a saw horse, and light a cigarette. He wondered if he were already in the process of becoming one of those hobbyist husbands, shunted out of his own house by an in-law.
He threw the cigarette on the floor and ground it under his heel. Damn it, that old man was going to have to change his ways, and that’s all there was to it.
Charlie went back into the house. The living room was empty. Laura was home — there was a bag of groceries on the table just inside the front door.
Then Charlie heard their voices, hers and her father’s, in argument, from the old man’s bedroom.
“He hid my pills, I tell you!” the old man said.
“No, father,” Laura said patiently, “they were right there in the cabinet where you put them — behind the soda box.”
“You’re working hand in glove with him!”
“Father...”
“I can see it now! He’s turning you against me.”
“No, father. We both love you and want you to be happy. We want to take care of you.”
The old man snorted in disbelief as Laura came into the living room, picked up the groceries, and started toward the kitchen.
“I’ll hurry dinner up, Charlie. I was late getting to the store.”
Laura’s worn look caused Charlie to put off what he’d intended to say.
“I’ll give you a hand,” he said.
The right emotional distillation didn’t again take place inside of Charlie, and he didn’t speak his mind during the following week.
Then on Tuesday Laura called him at the office. The old man had fallen down the basement steps and would Charlie please hurry home?
He explained briefly to his boss, ran to the parking lot, and fought traffic out to the development Laura met him at the door.
“How is he?” Charlie asked.
“He’s all right.” She passed the back of her hand over her forehead. “I guess I shouldn’t have called you, Charlie, but when I heard him go tumbling...”
“I know. What does the doctor say?”
“That my father is a very lucky man, or indestructible.” Her face twisted, giving it a strange expression Charlie had never seen before. “The doctor just left.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Not today. He wants me to bring father into his office tomorrow morning, just for a check-up.”
She’d need the car, then. That meant riding the bus to work. Schedules out here put Charlie either fifteen minutes late or forty-five minutes early to the office.
He sighed. “Well, I guess I better look in on him.”
“Charlie—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t get him... I mean...”
“I’m the soul of patience,” Charlie assured her, a touch of bitterness in his voice.
Charlie opened the old man’s bedroom door softly and stepped inside. The old man had his eyes closed. His bones made creases in the covers and that was all.
As Charlie neared the bed, the old man opened his eyes and looked at him.
“How are you, sir?”
“I’ll survive,” the old man said softly. “I’ll survive a long time.”
“We hope so. How did it happen?”
“I fell down the basement steps.”
“I know. Laura told me that on the phone.”
“I could have been killed.”
“But you weren’t, and we’re grateful for that. The doctor said you’re fine.”
“Could have been killed...” the old man said, as if Charlie hadn’t spoken. “All because there was a carton of old shoes on the steps. Right near the top.”
Charlie tried to understand the old man’s feelings. “I meant to take them down last night.”
“But you didn’t,” the old man said in that soft voice that sounded like a whisper from an eternal tomb.
“No, I... Laura asked me to... Listen, what am I explaining every detail to you for!”
He caught the glint of warped satisfaction in the old man’s eye. He felt awkward and foolish. His quick anger drained to be replaced by something else.
“You hate me,” the old man whispered.
And it was true. For the first time, Charlie knew it was true. The old man seemed to have a profound knowledge of it.
“You’re a little upset,” Charlie said through stiff lips. “You know we care greatly for you.”
He turned and went out. He found refuge in the shop, turning on a lathe and letting the chips fly.
Finally, he realized that Laura was calling him from the house. He switched off the lathe, turned off the heater, and hurried across the backyard. He had no right to act childishly toward her, to pity himself because he lacked the manhood to be the head of his own house.
He waited until late that night, until he was certain the old man was asleep and wouldn’t come creeping in. He cut the legs for a cocktail table without his mind being on the task. When he came into the house, he washed his hands in the kitchen, thinking of what he would say.
Laura was on the end of the couch, feet curled under her while she watched TV. Charlie felt a great reluctance inside of him as he approached her. The word “showdown” came to his mind, frightening him a little.
He eased down beside her. She looked at him and smiled. He really did love her, he thought. Under different circumstances, with some kids around...
“How’s the table coming, Charlie?”
“Fine.”
“Can I have a look tomorrow?”
“Sure, if you want Laura...”
Thundering hooves and banging six-guns filtered into the space between them.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, his collar feeling tight.
“About father,” she said “Yes, I guess so.”
“You want him out.”