Read Online Service Dress Blues by Michael Bowen - Free Book Online

the tube just to take your mind off the whole thing. But Ole would have done that in the club room, not here.
    Play the piano or whatever it was as a stress reliever? Maybe. But the deputy had found Ole lying not far from the front door, head toward the door as if he’d been facing it, standing up, when he was hit. Why?
    â€œWas the front door open when you walked in and found Ole?”
    Apparently surprised at the question, Lena squeezed her eyes tightly shut for three or four seconds and frowned.
    â€œI think it was, now that you mention it. I don’t think I even noticed at the time.”
    â€œIn the middle of the night in December?”
    â€œYou’re right,” Lena said, “that’s odd. But I remember now I didn’t have to go open it to let the deputy in. He just barged right through.”
    â€œDid Ole play the piano?”
    â€œHarpsichord. Not for twenty years. He has a perfectionist streak that keeps him from having the patience for it. Used to be he’d play beautifully for sixteen bars or so and then he’d hit a wrong note and get so frustrated he’d start cussing and stomping on the floor. He finally got to where he wouldn’t play at all.”
    â€œWas the light on in the living room when you came in?”
    â€œNo. I came back to the house on full boil, ready to have it out with him. I gunned the Ford up the driveway, screeched to a stop, slammed through the back door, flipped on the kitchen light on my way through, flipped on the dining room light as I stepped into the living room, and then turned on the light in here. That’s when I saw him.”
    â€œSo when he was hit,” Kuchinski said, “he was apparently just standing here, in the dark, facing the open front door.”
    â€œUnless the intruder opened the front door to get out.”
    â€œBut you heard the intruder make a noise in the back part of the house just before you walked in here.”
    â€œThat’s true,” Lena conceded thoughtfully. “It doesn’t make much sense, I guess.”
    â€œSure it does. Ole opened the door so that he’d be sure to see you drive up. He left the inside lights off so he’d have a clear view outside. He might have been worried that you wouldn’t come home at all. If you did come home, he wanted to be ready as soon as you arrived. I don’t know if he wanted to be ready to say how sorry he was or ready for round two, but it was one or the other.”
    â€œYou think Ole will remember it that way?”
    When I get through with him he will
. Kuchinski left this thought unvoiced. No sense giving away trade secrets.
    â€œHow about a look in the back, where you heard the noise from?”
    â€œFollow me.”
    Kuchinski marched obediently behind Lena back to the club room. He saw the array of flags against the back wall and sliding glass doors. He walked over to verify that the doors opened onto a weathered deck, the boards splintered and turning gray. But only a patch of snow here and there showed up on it.
    â€œDo you and Ole keep this deck shoveled off?”
    â€œOle does. He goes out there when he smokes, so it won’t bother me. He keeps the deck clear so he can go out when he feels like a smoke without putting his heavy boots on.”
    â€œDoes smoking bother you? The police report said that you asked the deputy for a cigarette.”
    â€œI did, I guess. I quit twelve years ago. It was my sixtieth birthday present to myself. I only cheat every once in awhile, in what you might call your high-stress situations.”
    â€œAnd you’ve gotten to where you hate it?”
    â€œJust the opposite. I love the smell of cigarette smoke. Ole takes it outside because he doesn’t want to undermine me. He knows if I had to walk around smelling the stuff all day I’d relapse.”
    Kuchinski went up on tiptoes so that he could glance over the tops of the flags, through the sliding door glass.