The Fury of Rachel Monette Read Online Free PDF

Italian, good German.”
    â€œThank you, Mrs. Monette.” Joyce added the details to his written account. “That could be a big help, especially if we assume Mrs. Flores would have recognized Spanish if they’d been speaking it. We can probably strike it off the list, you see.”
    â€œI believe Mrs. Flores is Portuguese,” Rachel said. As she said it, she felt a keen self-hatred, for allowing herself to play an active role in this petty alignment of detail, as if they were involved in a parlor puzzle to while away the day. Who cares about the minutiae, Andy Monteith had said, was it only last night? It’s what it says that counts. Sensible boy, Dan had said. She looked at Ed Joyce. He would never find her son.
    Ed Joyce felt abashed. He had made an assumption and been tripped up by it, a beginner’s mistake. “We’ll have to check that out,” he said.
    Ethel Dawkins came into the room, carefully carrying a tray in her plump hands. “Tea, anyone?” she asked. She began moving magazines aside to clear a place on the table for the tray.
    â€œThanks, Mrs. Dawkins, love some.”
    â€œYou’re very welcome, Mr. Joyce. And try the chocolate chip cookies. I made them myself.” Ethel looked around. “My, it’s dark in here,” she said, and did a quick circuit of the room snapping on the lights.
    Ed Joyce poured a cup for himself and stirred in cream and sugar. He poured another for Rachel and slid it across the coffee table to her, arranging the cream, sugar, and cookies in a little group nearby. She didn’t touch any of it. Joyce held the Wedgwood cup delicately in his immense hand, his little finger stuck out for balance. The chief liked the pattern on the cup—it showed a cherubic swallow hovering over a floral scene that made him think suddenly of the Garden of Eden. He sipped carefully.
    â€œEleven fifty-seven,” he went on, holding the cup in front of him, “she’s in the hall, hearing voices. She dusts the marble-top table, the vase that sits on it, and the bentwood chair. She dusts the doorknob of the hall closet. She goes to the front door and starts to work on the big brass handle. That’s the last thing she remembers until you came down the stairs.” The chief leaned forward, reached across the table, took a cookie and bit into it. His jaw muscles bulged as he chewed. He washed the debris down his throat with a mouthful of tea.
    â€œTime spent in the hall, at least by the young fellow I had duplicate all that dusting—four minutes. That brings us to one minute after twelve.” Ed Joyce turned a page in the notebook and pulled the floor lamp closer.
    â€œNow, the kidnapping. Miss Partridge’s class always starts eating lunch at twelve sharp. Miss Partridge estimates that they had been eating for ten minutes when she heard a knock at the door—the main door, not the one that leads out back. She opened it and was beckoned out into the hall by a tall, black-bearded man wearing a robe of some sort. At first she didn’t realize that he was a rabbi. In fact not until he introduced himself as such. She doesn’t remember the name he gave her but thinks it sounded Jewish.” Ed Joyce closed his eyes and sighed.
    â€œThis rabbi told her that Adam’s father had just been killed in a car wreck, and that you had sent him to bring Adam home.” Rachel began to rock the chair slowly; one of the old wooden joints made a regular creaking sound. The chief didn’t look up from his notebook, but he tried to make his voice sound softer, although he knew it was little suited to the task.
    â€œMiss Partridge was puzzled by one thing, and I think she came close to upsetting the whole scheme right there. She didn’t understand why you would send a rabbi. ‘Why not?’ he kept asking her. Finally, he cottoned on, and explained that you were Jewish. Evidently that did the trick. Miss