Read Online The Late Clara Beame by Taylor Caldwell - Free Book Online Page A

anyone there, then? You didn’t hear or see anyone?”
    “No! I could hear the boys snoring in the living room, and the sound of distant traffic. That’s all.”
    “Did you know what time it was?”
    “Yes. I had my wrist watch on. As a matter of fact, I looked at the time, in the bathroom. It was ten after four.”
    “The doctors said Sam died between three and four,” Alice told her. “And you’re sure you didn’t hear anyone talking to Sam, or moving around?”
    “No. I told you — ” She stopped, her face pale.
    “What?” Alice demanded.
    Laura’s hands were suddenly still. “When I came out of the bathroom,” she whispered, “Dave was near the door. He — he looked very sleepy.”
    “Dave!”
    Laura nodded. “He was as surprised as I was. He — he was just reaching for the doorknob. You see, I’d turned out the light, because I was leaving.”
    Alice walked to the window and stood, staring out. “You never told the police about that?”
    “Why should I have?”
    “Why did you take the glass with you, when you saw it was Sam there, and not Hank?”
    “I — I don’t know. I’d picked it up. And then when I saw it was Sam, I just hurried out of the room. I didn’t want to disturb him. I didn’t know he was — And then when I was in the bathroom I saw there wasn’t any glass there, so I washed — Sam’s — glass — and drank from it.”
    Alice turned back to her. “What made you keep quiet about it? Why didn’t you tell the police?”
    “I told Henry,” Laura said. “I didn’t think it meant anything. Why should it have? Henry said I shouldn’t bother mentioning it to the police. It would just cause complications — ”
    “In a plain case of suicide.” Alice finished the sentence.
    “Of course,” Laura agreed weakly. “It was all terrible enough, as it was.”
    “Of course. Have you and Hank discussed your being in Sam’s room since then?”
    “No. I — I forgot all about it until now. It was painful to remember.”
    Alice took a deep breath. “Well, I’m sorry. Forget it again.”
    At that moment there was a sharp report outside, with thunderous echoes which reverberated across the countryside. And then a series of alarmed shouts.
    Alice swung around and ran from the room. Laura got out of bed and quickly put on slippers and a robe. She was hurrying down the stairs just as the front door opened, and she saw her husband and Evelyn come in, both of them white-faced.
    “Someone took a shot at me!” Henry’s voice was high-pitched and trembling.
    He stared blindly at the two women.
    “I said,” he almost shouted, “someone tried to kill me!”

Chapter 6
    David came into the hall with a book in his hand. “What’s going on here? Who shot off that gun?”
    He looked at the two silent women, and at Henry, in his plaid lumberjacket, his boots and legs dappled with snow. Henry took off his plaid cap and stared at it as if it were an object he had never seen before. He was shaking badly. Evelyn, the little wizened handyman, breathed loudly in the sudden quiet. David turned to him.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Well, sir,” Evelyn wheezed, “we was just coming out of the woodshed — Mr. Frazier here said we had enough up from the freezers — and then we heard this bang. Sounded right close by. Mr. Frazier ducked; not that it’d done much good if he’d really been hit. You know, you don’t hear the bang first, it’s the bullet you get. Then comes the bang. And there’s the bullet, yessir, right in the door of the woodshed. Still there, matter of fact. What I’d like to know, who tried to kill Mr. Frazier?”
    There were running footsteps, and John Carr appeared. He looked at the group in astonishment. “What’s wrong?”
    “Hank says someone tried to kill him. Shot at him, just now,” David told him. “Didn’t you hear anything?”
    “Yes, I did. A hunter?”
    “In this weather?” David asked. “In all these drifts?”
    It was then that Laura