Read Online Guilt by G. H. Ephron - Free Book Online Page B

man who’d been sitting at the table next to them, but the man was already out the door. “Sonofabitch,” the waiter muttered. “Didn’t pay for his coffee.”

9
    â€œS O, P ETER, where’d you say you picked this up?” MacRae asked the next morning, gazing poker-faced at the flyer Peter had brought to his office.
    â€œAcross from the courthouse. Thought it might go with the one you pulled down off the lamppost?”
    MacRae did a double take.
    â€œI was across the street, up on the plaza, on my way to court. Late, thank god.” Peter told him that he’d been knocked down and his papers had gone flying. “I didn’t realize until I got back that I’d picked it up. When I read it, I realized I should bring it to you.”
    MacRae slipped the flyer into an evidence bag. “Flyers just like this were all over the immediate neighborhood.”
    Peter told him that Chip thought he’d recognized the quote, and that the symbol at the end stood for anarchy.
    â€œI know. It’s un-fucking-believable,” MacRae said. “Cambridge. Pff.” He blew air out between his teeth.
    In a nutshell, that was what Peter loved about the place where “mainstream” thinkers were considered a fringe element. When Peter first moved there, a scruffy, amiable group of old-style radicals who called themselves the Anarchist Drinking Brigade held regular meetings at the Green Street Grill. Last year, a church in the middle of Harvard Square hosted a book fair where they sold anarchist manifestos alongside vegan cookbooks.
    â€œYou think this could be the same person who did the law school?” Peter asked.
    MacRae looked impassive.
    Peter recalled the way MacRae had dismissed him after the law school bombing. You people will probably end up defending the bastard. The hell with him. Peter’s conscience was clear. He’d brought in what he’d found. He started to get up, then paused at the sound of MacRae clearing his throat.
    MacRae opened his top desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. He held it facedown on his desk. “I’d like to show you something. We haven’t given this to the press, so I don’t want to hear about it on the evening news.”
    MacRae could be such an arrogant sonofabitch. “You want me to sign something?”
    â€œNo. I just wanted to be clear. I’m showing you this in confidence.”
    He handed Peter the paper. It was a Xerox of a flyer. Looked as if the original had been weathered and torn.
    Freedom from oppression!
    The law prevents Us from pursuing Our destiny.
    Civil government is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor. When people fear government, there is Tyranny. When government fears the people, there is liberty.
    There was the same symbol at the bottom, a circled A.
    â€œWas this one found near the district court, too?” Peter asked.
    MacRae shook his head. “Law school. Must’ve been up for weeks. Unfortunately, we didn’t find it and more like it until this morning, when we knew what we were looking for.”
    â€œHow do you think he got past courthouse security?” Peter asked.
    MacRae stood there chewing his lower lip. He hated to part with information but he knew the dance—you had to give a little to get a little. “All we know is he did.”
    That was unsettling. Meant the bomber could blend in. Might have come dressed like an attorney, had an ID pass to get in. It would be easy to leave behind a briefcase with the bomb in it, then disappear into the neighborhood. Could have been one of the people on the sidewalk, or in the coffee shop. The man calling to say he’d be getting home early and bringing a half gallon of milk. The one who bolted out of the place without paying. Maybe it was the man on the sidewalk Peter had tried to help. Peter couldn’t remember if the man had a briefcase, or even what he looked like. A