ARC: The Buried Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

several pages and twirling a pen in her free hand. She looked up with a characteristic half-smile.
    “Go on in,” the redhead drawled, leaning back in her chair. “Chief’s waiting for you.”
    Malone crossed the threshold into a second, grander office, paneled with oak and furnished with green leather chairs. Chief Johanssen, a thickset man in his late fifties, sat at a handsome desk opposite the double doors, a roaring fire warming his back. Brass lamps lined the walls.
    “Malone.” He nodded in her direction. “Come in. Sundar.” Malone followed his gaze to a point just behind her right shoulder where the younger man had materialized. Sundar smiled in greeting as they both moved toward the desk. Johanssen rose and shook their hands, his warm, coarse paws enveloping theirs.
    “Glad to see you both.” He settled once again into his armchair. He gestured to the two seats in front of his desk, and the inspectors lowered themselves into the squeaking leather. “Malone, Sundar tells me the sweeps were clean,” he said with a wry grin, “but tell me what you found at the address.”
    “Broken gate, sir, just like the sweeps said. Cahill was dead, his study showed signs of the struggle, but nothing else was disturbed.”
    The first stray worry lines cracked across Johanssen’s forehead. “Your analysis?”
    “Murder with intent, sir.”
    Johanssen folded his hands, and Malone waited for the inevitable opposition. “No question about a break-in,” he said. “But this sounds like a struggle and an accident. At Cahill’s age, it’s all too easy.”
    Malone understood the chief’s hesitation. Violent crime outside the factory districts, populated with the more desperate types, was uncommon. Except for the occasional poisoning or duels between rivals, they grew exceedingly rare as one approached the Vineyard and the neighborhoods that rippled out from it.
    “Doubtful, sir,” she said. “There was bruising at the base of his skull.”
    Sundar rubbed the curve at the back of his own head. “Below the bump? That would be hard to hit accidentally unless he fell backward into a desk or shelf or something.”
    “Right,” Malone said, cutting Sundar off and continuing before Johanssen could protest further. “And Cahill was slumped against the wall when I found him. No blood, skin, or hair on the furniture. That suggests a blunt instrument, something that the murderer took with him. No bruising around the wrists or forearms. No attempt to restrain him.”
    Johanssen’s lower lip pushed into a momentary pout as he sucked his teeth, thinking. “The motive?”
    “Theft, sir.”
    “Of what? Cahill’s street is filled with merchants and bankers. All more tempting targets.”
    “The murderer wanted information, not valuables. Dr Cahill was a historian, and he was working on something before he was killed.” Malone described the scene in Cahill’s study, and the corner of the Johanssen’s mouth twitched when she mentioned the history books and the empty desk.
    “If I may,” Sundar said, clearing his throat, “the sweeps mentioned the broken gates, but according to them, the gates were bent outwards, and they said they saw shattered glass on the steps outside. Isn’t this the opposite of what would happen if someone broke in?”
    “If someone broke in,” Malone said. “No one had to.” At that, she produced the key she had found near the elevator.
    Johanssen squinted at it. “Go on.”
    Malone crossed one leg as she continued, putting the key on Johanssen’s desk. “How the murderer got this is the real question, but it tells us that he planned. It also tells us that he’s not a professional. Whether he panicked or stumbled, he dropped his key on the way up the elevator, and he couldn’t take the time to return for it. Or couldn’t see it in the dark. The gate was rusted enough for him to break it open with a few good kicks or a couple blows from his weapon. He only had to break out.”
    “Why not