Read Online Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) - Free Book Online Page A

the MG's windshield was covered with saltcake
moisture. I got in and turned on the defroster, then sat there
waiting for the glass to clear. There was nothing I could do now
except go back to my motel and call Snelling. My case was finished—or
was it? Maybe he would want me to follow up and see what the police
found out about Jane's murder.
    When I entered my room I saw that the red message button on the
telephone was lit. A sleepy-sounding voice at the desk told me I
should call Hank Zahn. It was late, but I knew my boss habitually
stayed up until all hours, so instead I dialed Snelling's number. The
phone rang and rang, but there was no answer.
    Odd, I thought. Where would the reclusive photographer be at
almost one in the morning? I dialed again, to make sure I'd called
the right number, but the result was the same. Very odd. I pondered
it for a moment, came to no conclusion, and called Hank.
    He answered immediately, sounded as fresh as if it were nine in
the morning. Hank was a restless man whose lean, loose-jointed body
needed little fuel other than coffee and the horrible concoctions he
whipped up in the All Souls kitchen—and that the other
attorneys steadfastly refused to eat. His keen mind thrived on
massive doses of information collected from such wide-ranging sources
as the newspapers of several major cities, lectures by little-known
experts on esoteric disciplines, and advertisements on the backs of
cereal boxes. Neither his mind nor his body required much in the way
of sleep.
    "I just called to see how the investigation's going," he
said.
    "Not so good."
    "How come?"
    "The woman Snelling hired me to find is dead. Murdered."
    There was a pause. "You do manage to get mixed up in this
stuff, don't you?"
    "Yes." I'd been involved with six murders in the three
years I'd worked for All Souls. Jane Anthony's made it seven. "It's
depressing. The victim's mother claims if I hadn't been, as she puts
it, snooping around, it wouldn't have happened."
    "Do you believe that?"
    "No. It was just an emotional statement."
    "You don't sound like you don't believe it."
    I shrugged, then remembered Hank couldn't see me. "Intellectually,
I don't. Otherwise—who knows?"
    Hank seemed to sense I didn't want to talk anymore. "Well,
I'm sorry it turned out that way. When will you be back?"
    "Tomorrow, maybe. After I report to Snelling, I'll let you
know."
    "Okay." Again he paused. "And, Shar…"
    "Yes?"
    "Try to get some sleep now."
    "Sure. Take care." I hung up and sat on the bed a while,
staring at a crack in the beige wall. Then I got up, undressed, and
crawled between the sheets.
    For a long time sleep wouldn't come. I shifted positions, bunching
up the pillows this way and that, trying to clear my mind of images
of Jane's lifeless body. When I finally did doze off, I was
half-conscious of tossing and turning, coming fully awake in the
midst of unclear but disturbing dreams to find myself tangled in the
covers, drenched in sweat. As gray light began to seep around the
edges of the curtains, I gave up and propped myself against the
headboard to think.
    I'd certainly never intended my life to take the direction it had.
The job with the detective agency that I'd taken after leaving
college had been a stopgap measure for an out-of-work sociology
graduate who was waiting for her real opportunity to come along. But
the flexible hours and freedom from the confining walls of an office
suited me; and when the agency had fired me for my inability to bend
to authority, my old friend Hank had hired me on at All Souls. The
unconventional atmosphere there had suited me even better. I was good
at what I did, and proud of it.
    If it had stopped there, it would have been fine. Or even if it
had stopped with the first murder case, it would have been all right.
But there were other deaths, and the older I got the more violence I
saw, the more I wondered if I could go on like this indefinitely. And
when I wondered that, I also wondered what I would do