Murder in a Nice Neighborhood Read Online Free PDF

impending claustrophobia I’d felt in the holding room came back to stifle me. “If your informant is correct, Murphy mentioned the bank. Perhaps he was simply going to use his autoteller card.”
    Drake stared at me for a minute, and burst into laughter. “We better check up on that, Bruno.” He got to his feet, leaving his half-full cup of coffee on the table. “Back to work, eh?” He turned away from the table, and then swung around again. “Oh, here you are, Ms. Sullivan.” He tossed my keys onto the table. “You can pick up your other stuff at the front desk. Don’t leave town, now. It would look very bad.”
    The release from tension was almost painful. I stared after Drake, resentful and elated at the same time.
    Morales patted my arm. “It’s just his way, Ms. Sullivan. But he’s right—you must cooperate with us now or you risk being detained. Where will you be staying?”
    This was a pitfall I hadn’t seen. Morales noticed my hesitation. “You must give the clerk an address, you see,” he told me gently. “Perhaps it would be better if you found a hotel room for a while. The Carver Arms—”
    I shuddered.
    “It’s cheap,” he insisted. “And we will investigate as quickly as possible.”
    "I’ll find someplace. Can I let you know later?”
    He shook his head. “The clerk can make a reservation for you,” he said. So much for Mr. Nice Guy. “We will be in touch.” He hesitated, and added, “If it would be better, I can have you taken into custody. I think you would prefer the Carver Arms.”
    “I think you’re right.” I offered him my hand. “Thanks for your help, Detective Morales.”
    “Be careful.” He shook my hand gently and guided me down the hall toward the front desk. “We don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Ms. Sullivan."
    It was a nice thought, but it didn’t exactly reassure me.
     

Chapter 6
     
    The bus was parked in the underground lot beneath City Hall. Inside it was a stilled maelstrom, where the contents of my life had been whirled through the bureaucracy and, I hoped, come out the other side. I sat in the driver’s seat for several minutes, not moving, not really breathing, before I could put the key in the ignition. Carefully, as if guiding an invalid, I drove up the ramp and onto Bryant Street. By the time I got to Channing I was shaking so hard I had to pull over.
    For vagabonds, mobility becomes essential. Nothing is as fear-inducing as being deprived of the means of getting away, getting out of town. There was no knowing how close I had come to losing this, to being penned like livestock awaiting its fate. The relief was a euphoria close to panic, especially when I considered that, though I had wheels, I was no longer free. My pen was larger than a cell, but I was tethered within it, my fate still uncertain.
    At last I got a grip on myself. Hunger made me lightheaded. It was past breakfast, too early for lunch. I gobbled some peanut butter crackers and headed for the library, stopping along the way at a deserted construction site on Cowper to empty the plastic bucket in one of a bevy of Porta-potties. I wondered if the police had seized their opportunity to get a specimen, but that didn’t matter, except for the affront to my civil liberties. I was clean, even if the bus, after its intensive search, was not. For the time being, I left the mess alone. I wanted the quiet calm of the library reading room. And murder or no murder, I had a living to make.
    Once at my table, with the volumes I needed, I couldn’t concentrate. I kept seeing Pigpen Murphy’s face, distorted with pain after I shut the door on his hand. If I’d known he was going to die, I might have been kinder.
    But I doubt it.
    At last I pulled my thoughts back to the research I was doing. I had gotten a go-ahead from Smithsonian on a query that dealt with the rowdy little town of Mayfield, which had been gradually overcome and engulfed by Leland Stanford’s statelier creation, Palo