Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
Dave scratched at his two-day growth of beard and mulled this over. “Time of death was between nine and eleven last night.”
I looked him a question.
“Got a friend in the lab,” he drawled. “So maybe that puts Nadine elsewhere — and I say maybe. But does it clear Beth? She say what time she left here?”
“No!” I said. “Are you crazy? Why would either of them want to hurt Noland Nicholson? Beth’s all peace and love; she couldn’t hurt a fly. Nadine either.”
“Not even to protect Darby?”
“Protect him from what?”
Dave shrugged. “Still some holes in the theory.”
“Still some holes in your head,” I snarked, but he’d planted a seed and despite myself I felt suspicion growing.
“I wonder what time Kyle went AWOL,” I mused aloud.
“Ten minutes till ten he was out at the main road waiting for a kid named Nate from the construction crew to pick him up.”
“Wow, you have been busy,”
“Young Nate’s got himself a little fencing enterprise going. Kyle told him he’d bring him some ‘good stuff,’ but he didn’t deliver. Said he couldn’t get to the goods and promised to have another go at it.”
“Why in the world would this kid Nate tell you all that?” I asked.
Dave flexed a neck muscle. “I can be very persuasive. And anyway, he might have gotten the impression I was with the SBI.”
Dave flashed a badge at me. From this distance it looked like a proper State Bureau of Investigation credential but if the kid had bothered to look closer he’d have seen it was bogus.
“You’re going to get in trouble with that one of these days,” I said.
“But not this day. Anyhow, the kid was probably lying about some of it.”
“Is he, like, bad news? Capable of violence?” I asked.
Dave sighed. “Nearly everybody is, given the right circumstances. Could be he’s in just deep enough to start thinking he’s a tough guy who can beat a rap. Or maybe he’s a scared punk who thought he was caught and started blubbering.”
“Any idea what Kyle was planning to bring to him to fence? Maybe it was the albums? Sheriff Pierce wouldn’t tell me, but I think they may have gone missing.”
“Naw, the kid swears he doesn’t know what Kyle was gonna filch.”
I paced. “So, there are other people who could have done this, and who might have had a reason. Do we know where any of them were when it happened?”
Dave ticked off the lineup. “Ted Mayhall claims he was home, watching TV, alone. John Daws flat-out refused to answer questions about his whereabouts. And according to Nate, he picked up Kyle before ten, but he was mad and ditched him once they got into town. You’ve got Nadine and Beth’s story. So no, we don’t really know where anyone was — except Darby.”
I felt my spirits sag. “Well, Sheriff Pierce needs to know all this about Kyle. For Beth’s sake I hope it turns out he didn’t get mixed up in something that caused Noland’s death, but like the sheriff says, we need all the facts.”
“Yep,” Dave said. “Word on the street is the sheriff’s hot to get this one in the bag before the real SBI comes in and big-foots the case. We don’t want any rush-to-judgment deal going down here.”
The next morning I walked out away from the house toward the tree line to make the call. I didn’t want to risk being overheard, and anyway, the view of the mist-shrouded blue-green mountains was spectacular and somehow gave me hope.
“Don’t suppose there’s any sense in asking how you’ve come to learn all this,” the sheriff said after I told him what we’d learned about Kyle and Nate.
“I’m just passing on information — the facts, like you said, Sheriff.”
“And I thank you. But I’d appreciate it if you and your erstwhile SBI friend Dave would let me do the investigating from here on out,” he said, firmly but not unkindly. When I didn’t reply he added, “There’s not much that goes on in this county that I don’t hear about sooner or later.”
Wow, “erstwhile”? This was no yokel. I promised him earnestly that we’d stay completely out of it, hung up, and jogged back to the house. Dave and I had concocted the plan the night before. The minute Beth left to post Darby’s bail I’d find Kyle and question him — without Dave. Intimidation wouldn’t work with this kid and I can at least feign a caring touch. I was quite confident I could get the kid to talk.
I was quite wrong.
Kyle turned belligerent before I even got the first question out of my mouth. He ordered me out of his room and slammed the door right in my face.
I looked up and saw Jared at the end of the hall and was relieved it wasn’t the sheriff catching me interfering in the case. I met him halfway down the passage.
“I’m assuming the sheriff told you what we found out about Kyle?” I said, jerking my thumb toward the kid’s bedroom door.
“Yeah,” Jared said, “I’m here to question him. Did he tell you anything?”
“Nada,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll have better luck,” he said. “I’m pretty good with young punks. Maybe because I used to be a young punk myself,” he said, and there was that nice smile again.
I was momentarily distracted by the way his tanned skin crinkled around his blue eyes. Geez, what would Dave say about that! I shook my head to clear it.
“Kyle was planning to steal something, I know that much,” I said. “Maybe he took those albums Darby was selling to Noland. He knew they were valuable.”
“And untraceable, no way to prove those particular records were Darby’s even if we caught the kid red-handed with them. Everybody around knows Darby’s records are valuable,” he said. “He was always going on about his latest find. Kid probably thought that gold one alone was worth a wad of cash.”
“Yeah, people tend to get all excited about records stamped on colored vinyl. They’re not all that rare, but a neophyte like Kyle wouldn’t know that.”
“Exactly.” He clasped my shoulder lightly. “Let’s hope this leads somewhere — for Darby’s sake.”
Later that afternoon I wandered into the kitchen and saw through the window that Dave was talking with John Daws, who had a two-man crew out securing the construction site. I wondered what would become of Noland’s company.
Beth was at the table and I cringed when I saw she was on another crying jag. But she’d already seen me and it was too late to escape, so I sat beside her and tried to comfort her as best I could.
“I’m sorry,” she said, between sniffles. “I feel like my whole world’s falling apart. First Darby, now Kyle. That deputy questioned him; did you know that? Kyle won’t talk to me. He says he’s done something awful, but he won’t tell me what. He’s clammed up and locked himself in his room.”
I felt my stomach lurch. Bad as I’d wanted to find something to free Darby, I hadn’t wanted to sacrifice the kid. If he’d gotten mixed up in something that led to a man’s death it would destroy his family.
“Beth—” I began in a whisper. But I didn’t have a clue where to go from there. “Just stay strong, try not to worry,” I said, finally, hearing how lame it sounded.
Beth slammed both palms down on the table and practically spat, “I’m sick of everybody telling me that. How can I not worry? I can’t be Little Miss Sunshine right now, I am down, Session. Down in a deep, dark funk, and I’ve got a right to cry my eyes out if that’s what I need to do.”
I recoiled and stared at her a long time. I was surprised by the outburst, but it had started something percolating in my brain. “You’re right,” I said, finally. “You’ve got every right to be in a funk — a grand funk.” I ran over everything in my mind, double-checking myself. “Un-be-lievable,” I whispered.