Read Online Harry Dolan by Bad Things Happen - Free Book Online Page B

variations of the same dream. Once the window was in Tom Kristoll’s office. Once it was in her own room and the man at the window began to climb through. She assumed it was Kristoll, though in the dream his face was hidden in shadow. He beckoned to her as if he wanted to tell her something, but when she got out of bed he began to climb back out through the window. She stepped through to follow him and at first her feet found solid ground on the other side, and then the ground gave way.
    She woke suddenly, her legs jerking the way legs do in dreams about falling. She sat up and looked around. Gray light. Her bedside clock read 7:40. Her cell phone rang on the night table.
    It was McCaleb on the line. “I just heard from Lillian Eakins,” he said. “She won’t have anything official till later, but you better come in. You were right. It wasn’t a suicide.”

Chapter 8
    “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME.”
    “Is that right?”
    The house on the Huron River was thick with solemn young men and women in their twenties. The majority wore black, though whether it was a matter of style or of mourning would have been difficult to say. Laura Kristoll had her lawyer with her—a pudgy man with weak lips and thick gray hair that swept back from his forehead. She left him behind and invited Elizabeth into her husband’s study.
    “I knew Tom,” Laura said. “I’ve never believed that nonsense about not being able to really know another person. Are you married?”
    “I was,” Elizabeth said.
    “I knew Tom. I know he wasn’t depressed or guilt-ridden or whatever he would have to be to decide to throw himself from the window of his office. So what you’re here to tell me is that you’ve come to the same conclusion.”
    They sat in upholstered chairs and the afternoon sunlight came through the arched windows at the far end of the room.
    “That’s true,” said Elizabeth. “We believe your husband was the victim of an assault. The medical examiner found an injury that wouldn’t have been caused by the fall—a fracture of the skull at the back of the head that can’t be accounted for, given what we know about the impact and the position of the body. There was swelling at the site of the injury, and that means blood had to have been circulating, his heart had to have been beating—”
    “And it wouldn’t have been, after the fall,” said Laura.
    “No. So we believe your husband received a blow to the head, maybe more than one, at some point before the fall.”
    Laura Kristoll looked away toward the windows. Her golden hair was gathered up and pinned, but a few strands hung free. She trembled and Elizabeth saw the trembling in those strands.
    A tear rolled unobtrusively down Laura’s cheek, and she rose abruptly and crossed the room. There was a box of tissues on the desk. Elizabeth would have liked to let her alone. She thought about looking away; it took discipline to watch. Laura wiped her eyes. She braced herself, head low, elbows locked, palms flat on the surface of the desk. Elizabeth observed nothing false in her movements.
    She came back to her chair. “I apologize,” she said.
    “There’s no need.” Elizabeth nodded toward the closed door of the study. “Do you want me to call for someone?”
    “No. You’ll want to ask me things,” Laura said. “You’ll want to know if my husband had enemies. He didn’t. I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to kill Tom.”
    “Had he been experiencing any financial trouble? Any large debts?”
    “Nothing like that. The magazine’s doing well.”
    Elizabeth lowered her voice. “Forgive me for asking, but did he have any bad habits? Gambling? Drugs?”
    “He drank. Moderately. Once in a while he drank immoderately.”
    “Was it common for him to be at the office late on a Friday night?”
    “He kept his own hours.”
    “Who else has access to the office?”
    “There are interns going in and out during business hours,” Laura said.