O'Farrell's Law Read Online Free PDF

they had called and hoped everything was all right and tried once more before going out that evening and got the machine again, so they left a second recording.
    â€œThat’s not like her,” said Jill as they drove into town. They used her car because, being smaller, it was easier to park.
    â€œIt’s happened before,” said O’Farrell. It had become so ingrained over the years in his professional life not to overrespond (certainly never to panic) that O’Farrell found it impossible to react differently in his private life. Or did he?
    â€œWhy didn’t she call us? She knows we like to speak every week.”
    â€œThere’s all day tomorrow,” O’Farrell pointed out, going against his own need for regularity. He wished Jill had adjusted better to the collapse of Ellen’s marriage; she found it difficult to believe their daughter preferred to make her own life with her son in faraway Chicago rather than come back to Alexandria or somewhere close, where they would be near, caring for her.
    â€œI wonder if something has happened to Billy,” said Jill, in sudden alarm.
    â€œIf something had happened to Billy, she would have gotten a message through to us.”
    â€œI don’t like it.”
    â€œYou’re getting upset for no reason.” Routine sometimes had its disadvantages, he thought.
    There was some roadwork on Memorial Bridge but the delay wasn’t too bad and they still got into town in good time, because O’Farrell always allowed for traffic problems. He found a parking place at once on 13th Street and as they walked down toward Pennsylvania he said, “We’ve time for a drink, if you like.”
    Jill looked at him curiously. “If you want one.”
    â€œIt’s practically an hour before the curtain,” O’Farrell pointed out. “The alternative is just to sit and wait.”
    â€œOkay,” she said, without enthusiasm.
    They went to the Round Robin room at the Willard and managed seats against the wall, beneath the likenesses of people like Woodrow Wilson and Walt Whitman and Mark Twain and even a droop-mustached Buffalo Bill Cody, all of whom had used it in the past. O’Farrell got the drinks—martini for himself, white wine for Jill—and stood looking at the drawings. Had his great-grandfather encountered William Cody? he wondered. The martini could have been better.
    There had been a lot of noise from a group on the far side of the small room when they’d entered and it became increasingly louder, breaking out into a full-blown argument. There were five people, two couples and a man by himself; the arguers appeared to be one of the couples and the unattached man was attempting to intervene and placate both of them. O’Farrell heard “fuck” and “bastard” like everyone else in me room and the barman said, “Easy now: let’s take it easy, eh folks?” They ignored him. The would-be mediator put his hand on the arguing man’s arm and was shoved away, hard, so that he staggered back toward the bar and collided with another customer, spilling his drink. The barman called out, “That’s enough, okay!” and the woman said, “Oh, my God!” and began to cry. O’Farrell gauged the distance to the only exit against the nearness of the disturbance and decided that the shouting group was closer. Better to wait where they were than attempt to leave and risk getting involved. The man who’d staggered back apologized and gestured for the spilled drink to be replaced and went back to his group, jabbing with outstretched fingers at the chest of the man who’d pushed him. Waste of effort, thought O’Farrell: at least three inches from the point in the chest that would have brought the man down, and the carotid in the neck was better exposed anyway. The bridge of the nose, too. And the temple and the lower rib and the inner ankle. The killing