No Cure for Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

before.
    “Nope,” I said. “He’ll talk to the coroner and arrange an autopsy, I suppose.”
    “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I can’t picture this. He sat there and listened to that whole intricate story of yours, and then told you to get the hell out?”
    “He wasn’t as polite as all that.”
    “All ’round great guy, my stepdad.”
    “I wasn’t supposed to come up here and wake you up, either. He’d like to ‘see the boy get rested up,’ you know.”
    “Hell with it. I don’t know why I’m even staying here with him. If I had any sense I’d be over at my sister’s.”
    “Sometimes I think Brennan doesn’t like me.”
    “Perceptive. Very perceptive of you.” John got up and took his dishes over to the sink and dumped them in, ran water over them. It was a somewhat strange sight, as the window over the sink, the only window in this typical American kitchen, was barred and caged. He turned to the icebox and got out a jug of orange juice and asked if I wanted some and I nodded.
    He poured me some juice and said, “How’d he react when he found out that phone call you made from the depot yesterday wasn’t a practical joke? That you really
did
have a hassle with a big black dude?”
    “Like he reacted to everything else I told him. Like I’d said, ‘Nice day.’ He muttered something about never hearing of anybody around here who fit that description.”
    “What about Janet Taber’s mother? Has he checked with Iowa City yet to see how the old lady’s doing?”
    “Not yet he hasn’t. I assume he’s going to. I suggested it, anyway.”
    “Mal.”
    “What?”
    “You aren’t satisfied, are you?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You know what I mean. You aren’t satisfied you’ve gone and done your duty. Paid off the obligation you feel you owe that girl on the basis of the five-minute relationship you had going with her.”
    I sipped the juice. I was starting to feel awake; I could tell because my eyes could focus on John’s bright orange sweater without fuzzing up on me.
    I said, “No.”
    “No, what?”
    “No, I’m not satisfied.”
    “All right. You’re not satisfied. Where do you go from here? I’m not auditioning to play Tonto to your Lone Ranger, understand—I’m just interested.”
    “Well.” I took another sip of the juice. “This is how I figure it. I got a few days off now for Thanksgiving. Don’t have to register for new classes at the college till Tuesday. That gives me almost a week to do some nosing around.”
    “What is this, research? So you’ve sold a few mystery stories. That doesn’t make you a... a private eye, you know. That’s a fantasy, Mal.”
    “Give me a little credit, John. I’m just going to ask a few questions. If I turn something up, something your stepdad can’t ignore, I’ll toss him the ball, I promise.”
    He shook his head. “Mal, I lost my father—my real father—a long time ago; and Mom not so long ago. You lost your folks. We both saw friends die, in the war. People dying is a thing we’ve both faced. Had to face.”
    “Yes. That’s true.”
    “So you know as well as I do that there’s no way to make the dead rest easier. Nobody’ll rest easier, Mal. Nobody.”
    “I’ll rest easier.”
    He thought about that; then something went across his face that meant he’d made some sort of decision. He leaned forward with an intense, knit-brow look and said, “Now don’t go getting excited or anything...”
    “What? What are you...?”
    “It’s maybe nothing. It’s something I’m not at all sure about, understand. It was dark last night and I was tired and I was full of beer.”
    “What are you getting at, John?”
    “I think I maybe knew that girl.”
    “Janet, you mean? You knew Janet?”
    “I’m not sure, Mal.”
    “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this last night?”
    “I wasn’t sure, I said, and you were flaky enough as it was. It was just too farfetched. I thought it was just power of suggestion,