Read Online Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online Page A

shot me?”
    “Shot yourself,” said Cawelti, face inches from mine.
    “And threw the pellet gun away? Did you find it?”
    “Not yet,” he said.
    “You’ve got the other gun?” I asked.
    “What other gun?”
    “The one that was used to kill Cunningham,” I said. “That was no pellet hole.”
    “You had plenty of time to dump it,” he said, finger hovering over my arm.
    “Time for my lawyer, Merwin. Martin Raymond Leib,” I said.
    Cawelti’s face was bright crimson. He reached out for my wounded shoulder, and I shuffled my chair backward. He took a step toward me.
    The door behind him opened. I couldn’t see who it was. Cawelti was between me and the door. He stopped, turned his head, and came flying past me, hitting the wall.
    Phil stood there, door open behind him.
    A couple of detectives I recognized were in the doorway.
    “You’re under arrest,” Cawelti shouted at my brother.
    “For what?” Phil said.
    “Assaulting a police officer,” Cawelti said, pushing himself away from the wall.
    “You fell,” I said.
    “Looked that way to me,” said one of the detectives in the door, a big bald sergeant named Pepperman, who had been mustered out of the army in 1919, the same year as my brother.
    “Didn’t see it,” said the man next to him, Bill O’Keefe, who Phil had once pushed out of the way of the knife of a drugged-out Mexican kid named Orlejo Sanchez.
    “Get the hell out of my office,” Cawelti said, taking a step toward Phil and then thinking better of it.
    “You alright?” Phil said, ignoring Cawelti and looking at me.
    “Lovely,” I said.
    “Your brother killed a man tonight and shot a woman,” Cawelti said. “You don’t get out, you’re under arrest for interfering with a murder investigation.”
    Phil turned his unblinking eyes on him.
    “You’ve got nothing,” Phil said.
    “At the least,” Cawelti said. “At the goddamn least, I’ve got him for leaving the scene of a crime, two crimes.”
    “I was chasing the killer,” I said.
    “Chasing yourself?” Cawelti asked.
    “We’re going,” said Phil, motioning to me to follow him.
    “Hold it,” said Cawelti. “You’re not a police officer anymore. I’m in charge here. I’m the law. You do what I goddamn tell you.”
    “Ask nicely,” Phil said.
    I knew the look. So did Cawelti. So did the two detectives standing in the doorway. Phil might be arrested. He might even be shot, but, if he lost his temper, John Merwin Cawelti would be in need of a very long period of recuperation.
    Cawelti was breathing hard now as he said between his teeth,
    “Please get the hell out of here.”
    “Not without Tobias.”
    “He’s now officially under arrest for murder,” said Cawelti. “You want to help him escape?”
    Phil’s fists were clenched. He stepped toward Cawelti again. Cawelti retreated back, but this time he didn’t back down.
    “He’s under arrest,” he said.
    Phil stopped and said,
    “He’ll be out of here in an hour.”
    “Maybe,” said Cawelti.
    “I’ll be outside,” Phil said. “Right outside.”
    The two detectives in the doorway made way for him to leave. Cawelti strode across the room and closed the door. Then he turned to me.
    “Tell me a story,” he said.
    I told him about Calvin Ott, otherwise known as Maurice Keller. He wasn’t impressed. I told him about the missing buzz saw blade. He was even less impressed. I told him I wanted my lawyer. Twenty minutes later, Martin Raymond Leib, decked out in a perfectly pressed blue suit and a red-and-blue striped tie—all 300 lbs of him—entered the small office with a small smile of satisfaction. He was thinking of what he was going to bill Peters and Pevsner for his legal services.
    I was thinking about my aching shoulder.
    Marty told me to step out of the office. I did. Phil was there.
    We waited while Marty—slowly, I was sure, and with a patient smile—earned his fee.
    Marty Leib could afford to be slow and patient. He got paid by the hour.