Extenuating Circumstances Read Online Free PDF Page B

never have touched him, as if his goodness made him immune. I watched them, murmuring in groups in the middle of Lessing's handsome living room, and knew that each of them was hoping to hear that it had all been a mistake. Hoping that Lessing himself would come through the door.
    It could happen. He didn't have to be dead. He could have been dumped somewhere after having been beaten. But I didn't believe that -not after seeing the amount of blood inside the car.
    Twenty or thirty minutes went by -slowly. I saw Geneva come through the front door, a grim, abstracted look on his face. He didn't see me. After a time I got up and found my way down a short hall into a kitchen full of tin pots, Poggenpohl cabinets, and brushed-aluminum appliances. There was a phone beside the refrigerator. I picked it up and tried calling Lieutenant A1 Foster at CPD to see if he could fill me in on what Finch had held back. But Foster was out of the office for the week -on assignment.
    As I was standing there with the phone in my hand, the smart-looking white-haired woman who had comforted Janey walked into the kitchen. She'd been crying and her eyes were still wet with tears.
    "You're Mr. Stoner, aren't you?" she said.
    "Yes."
    She held out her right hand. "I'm Meg Lessing, Ira's mother."
    I shook with her. Under different circumstances I would have thought her attractive in a chic, sportive, well-tended way. But the terrible strain of the afternoon had put a cruel edge on her good looks. I could see it clearly in her gray eyes -a coldness that made her tears look like dew on stones. I withered a little under her gaze, feeling as much the outsider as her eyes seemed to say I was.
    I asked about Janey to break the pall.
    "She's asleep, thank God. We have a doctor coming, but I don't think he'll be much help. Janey loves Ira so." Meg Lessing's voice shook for a moment, and she put a hand to her throat to steady it. "We all do. He is a very good man."
    She eyed me expectantly, as if she were waiting for me to agree.
    "I'm sure he is a good man," I said.
    "Is there something you can tell me about ... about what happened? I mean, Len doesn't seem to know anything at all."
    "I don't think anyone knows very much at this point, Mrs. Lessing. I have been told that a boy was seen driving your son's BMW in Price Hill on the night of the Fourth."
    The woman looked alarmed. "A boy? What boy?"
    "The police don't like to give out names before they make an arrest. They're always cautious at this stage of an investigation."
    "But I want to know the boy's name!" she said with real urgency.
    I stared at her curiously. "You have someone particular in mind?"
    "I just want to know where my son is," she said in a cooler voice.
    I knew at once that she still thought that Ira Lessing was alive. And she knew from my reaction that I didn't.
    The woman's stony look simply fell apart, as if I'd tapped her cheek with a hammer. "You think he's dead, don't you?"
    I hesitated for an instant before answering, and the scattered pieces of her face flew together furiously, like a film of broken crockery run in reverse.
    "You do think he's dead," she said accusingly, as if bad thoughts had killed him.
    Trumaine walked into the room, looking worn, redeyed, and disheveled. "What's the matter?" he said to the woman when he saw her staring icily at me.
    "Mr. Stoner thinks Ira is dead."
    Trumaine sighed. "Meg, nobody knows yet. Not Stoner or the police."
    "Well, I know he's still alive. My son is still alive."
    She clutched at a little gold cross on her bosom. "God would not permit anything to happen to my
son," she said passionately.
    Trumaine pulled her against him. "It's all right, Meg."
    "I don't want that man here," Mrs. Lessing said in a hoarse whisper.
    "Meg, he helped me today. He may be able to help us again."
    "I don't care. We will handle this on our own, as a family. The way Tom would have handled it. The way Ira . . ." Her voice broke.
    Trumaine cast an apologetic look over Meg