Nightlines Read Online Free PDF

that Jeanette isn’t thinking clearly right now; she’s suffered two traumatic experiences in the past eight weeks. Be advised, do not take what she says as gospel truth.” She stood up. She had the carriage and suppleness of a much younger woman. Age had somehow overlooked her. Or maybe she’d made a deal with the devil, something to ease the burden of that cross.
    “So you want me to drop the case without telling Jeanette,” Nudger said, still seated.
    She smiled very faintly, pointing her smoldering long cigarette at him as if it were a magic wand that could in a wink make him disappear if she so chose. “Exactly, Mr. Nudger. Though I don’t know you, since you move with at least some competence upon the less genteel and more demanding underside of life, I am assuming that you are a man of some practical wisdom and judgment. The police will find Jenine’s murderer, if he can be found.” She snuffed out the just-lighted cigarette in the ashtray on the corner of the desk, a gesture done entirely for effect, theatrical yet lowkey.
    “Let me know what you decide, at your convenience. I’ll send you a check of a more than generous amount.”
    Nudger was struck again by the woman’s similarity to her daughter. Was there a mold somewhere turning out these shapely, cool, and distant women? He couldn’t resist asking, “Are you a twin, Mrs. Boyington?”
    “No. Twins run in families, Mr. Nudger, but usually they occur every other generation. My mother was a twin.”
    “Is Jeanette’s father alive?”
    “Herbert died twenty-five years ago. I never remarried. Why do you ask?”
    “Curiosity, Mrs. Boyington.” Nudger smiled and shrugged. “That’s why I’m a detective.” He didn’t tell her it had crossed his mind that spiders sometimes devour their mates.
    “You will consider my proposition?” she said. It was not really a question, rather a command.
    “Oh, I try to consider everything. A closed mind is the devil’s workshop.”
    “That’s ‘idle hands,’ Mr. Nudger.”
    “I wasn’t quoting.”
    She shot a withering glance at him, nodded, and stalked from the office, leaving in her wake a scent more like disinfectant than perfume.
    Nudger listened to her measured steps on the narrow wooden stairs that led to the street door, heard it open and close and felt the subtle change of temperature in a draft across his ankles. It felt warmer, now that Agnes Boyington had gone.
    Nudger drummed his fingers on the desk for a few minutes. Then he stood up and went downstairs, out the street door, and made a tight turn and entered the warm and cloying atmosphere of Danny’s Donuts.
    Danny was alone in the shop, as usual. Nudger often wondered how he stayed in business. But then he was sure Danny wondered the same thing about him. Neither of them was considering tax-free municipals.
    Danny’s basset-hound features brightened when he saw Nudger, and he poured a cup of his acidic coffee and placed it on the counter in front of Nudger’s customary stool near the serving door.
    Nudger sat and sipped. It was the polite thing to do. Danny plunked down a leadlike glazed doughnut next to the cup. Nudger knew that Danny’s freebies were leftovers from yesterday’s unsold pastry, and he was not so polite that he would eat that deadly morsel, despite Danny’s extreme sensitivity about the quality of his product.
    “I was upstairs thinking,” Nudger said.
    “That’s your line of business, Nudge.”
    “Yeah. Didn’t you once tell me you were a twin?”
    “That’s right. I had an identical twin brother. Sammy was his name. Samuel and Daniel.”
    “Where is Samuel now?” Nudger asked.
    Danny smiled, but there was a gleam of old sadness in his brown eyes. “Sammy died when we were six,” he said.
    “Being twins,” Nudger said, “do you think you were closer than other brothers?”
    Danny began carefully wiping down the stainless-steel counter. It didn’t need it. “I don’t know, Nudge. How could I be