The Heaven Makers Read Online Free PDF

me?”
    “Something about Ruth and he’s afraid we’ll shoot him if you’re not here.”
    “Is that what he said?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He’s living in a rather involved fantasy, that’s clear,” Thurlow said. “Perhaps I should go up and…”
    “I’m afraid I can’t risk giving him a hostage.”
    Thurlow sighed.
    “You’re here,” Mossman said. That’s what he asked for. I’ll go along with…”
    A radio speaker in the car beside them emitted a clanging sound, then: “Car nine.”
    Mossman leaned into the car, put the microphone to his mouth, thumbed the button: “This is car nine, over.”
    Thurlow looked around, recognized some of the officers sheltered behind the cars. He nodded to the ones who met his gaze, finding it odd how familiar and yet unfamiliar the men appeared, their faces dim in the polarized light which his lenses admitted. They were men he saw frequently in the, courthouse, men he knew by first name, but now they exposed a side he’d never before seen.
    A metallic crackling came from Mossman’s radio, then: “Jack wants to know your ten-oh-eight, car nine. Over.”
    Has Ruth heard yet? Thurlow wondered. Who’ll break this to her… and how?
    “Murphey’s still up there in his office,” Mossman said. “Dr. Thurlow’s here now and Murphey says he’ll give himself up in seven minutes. We’re going to wait him out. Over.”
    “Okay, car nine. Jack’s on his way with four more men. Sheriff’s still out at the house with the coroner. Sheriff says don’t take any chances. Use gas if you have to. Time is two forty-six; over.”
    “Car nine is seven-oh-five,” Mossman said. “Over and out.” He hung the microphone in its rack, turned back to Thurlow. “What a sweet mess!” He pushed his cream sombrero back from his forehead.
    “There’s no doubt he killed Adele?” Thurlow asked.
    “No doubt.”
    “Where?”
    “At their house.”
    “How?”
    “Knife—that big souvenir thing he was always waving around at barbecues.”
    Thurlow took a deep breath. It fitted the pattern, of course. A knife was the sickly logical weapon. He forced himself to professional calmness, asked: “When?”
    “About midnight near as we can figure. Somebody called an ambulance but they didn’t think to notify us for almost half an hour. By the time we got on it Joe was gone.”
    “So you came down here looking for him?”
    “Something like that.”
    Thurlow shook his head. As he moved, one of the spotlights shifted and he thought he saw an object hanging in the air outside Murphey’s window. He jerked his attention upward and the object appeared to flow backward up into the dark sky. Thurlow removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes. Strange thing—it had looked like a long tube. An aftereffect from the injury to his eyes, he thought. He replaced the glasses, returned his attention to Mossman.
    “What’s Joe doing in there?” Thurlow asked. “Any idea?”
    “Calling people on the telephone, bragging about what he’s done. His secretary, Nella Hartnick, had to be taken to the hospital in hysterics.”
    “Has he called… Ruth?”
    “Dunno.”
    Thurlow thought about Ruth then, really focused on her for the first time since she’d sent back his ring with the polite little note (so unlike her, that note) telling of her marriage to Nev Hudson. Thurlow had been in Denver on the fellowship grant that had come to him through the National Science Foundation.
    What a fool I was, he thought. That grant wasn’t worth losing Ruth.
    He wondered if he should call her, try to break this news to her as gently as possible. But he knew there was no gentle way to break this news. It had to be done swiftly, cruel and sharp. A clean wound that would heal with as small a scar as possible… under the circumstances.
    Moreno being the small town it was, he knew Ruth had kept her job after her marriage—night shift psychiatric nurse at the County Hospital. She’d be at the hospital now. A telephone call would be