The Nicholas Linnear Novels Read Online Free PDF

your father American?”
    She turned her face toward him and the warm glow from the living room lamps burnished one cheek as if by an artist’s brush. “Very American.”
    “What did he do?”
    “Let’s go inside,” she said, turning from him. “I’m cold.”
    First there was the large black and white photograph of a rather heavyset man with a firm jaw and undaunted eyes. Printed underneath was the legend: Stanley J. Teller, Chief of Police 1932 – 1964. Next to that was a framed copy of Norman Rockwell’s The Runaway.
    The office was a spare cubicle with double windows overlooking the courtyard parking lot. There was not much to see out there, this time of the evening.
    “Why don’t you cut the doubletalk, Doc, and run it by me in plain English,” Lieutenant Ray Florum said. “Just what’s so special about this drowning?”
    The subdued crackle of the two-way radio down the hall was a constant background chatter, like being on the telephone with a crossed connection.
    “That’s just what I’ve been trying to explain to you,” Doc Deerforth said slowly and patiently. “This man did not die of drowning.”
    Ray Florum sat down in his wooden swivel chair. It creaked beneath his weight. Florum was a big man, both in height and girth, which made him the butt of a series of ongoing jokes batted about good-naturedly among his staff. He was commanding officer of the Village Police of West Bay Bridge. He had a beery-cheeked face on which was positioned dead center, as if it were the bull’s-eye of some target, a bulbous red-veined nose. His skin was tanned to the color of cured leather; his salt and pepper hair was cut en brosse. He wore a brown Dacron suit not because he liked it but because he had to. He would just as soon come to work in a flannel shirt and a pair of old slacks. “What, then,” Florum said equally slowly, “ did he die from?”
    “He was poisoned,” Doc Deerforth said.
    “Doc,” Florum said as he wearily rubbed his hand over his face. “I want this to be real clear, understand? Crystal clear. So perfectly clear that there won’t be any possibility of a misunderstanding when I make out my report. Because, besides the State Detectives who, I’m sure you’re aware, I’m gonna have to copy on this—and when I do, they’re gonna be down here like locusts on a wheat field asking us to do all their goddamned field work and then sucking us dry—besides those sonsabitches, I’ve gotta contend with the county bastards who’re most probably gonna claim that this thing’s in their jurisdiction. And, to top it all off, now that you tell me it’s a murder, I’m gonna have Flower rumbling in from Hauppauge on his white horse wondering why our investigation is taking so long and when’s he gonna be relieved of the stiff, his staff’s so overworked.” Florum slammed the flat of his hand down on the cover of a copy of Crime in the United States, 1979. “Well, this time they’re just gonna have to wait long enough so that they’re one great step behind me.”
    A sergeant came in and handed Florum several typewritten sheets and went out without a word.
    “Christ, it makes my blood boil sometimes. I’m no goddamned politician. That’s what this job calls for. Who the hell cares whether I know police procedure or not. God!” But he got up, still, and came back with a file which he opened on his desk. He ran a hand through his hair, scratched at his scalp. He began to sift through a number of eight-by-ten black and white prints which, even upside down, Doc Deerforth recognized as shots of the drowned man.
    “First of all,” Doc Deerforth said calmly, “I’ve taken care of Flower. He won’t bother you, at least for the time being.”
    Florum looked up briefly, inquisitively, then his gaze returned to the photos. “Yeah, how’d you work that little miracle?”
    “I haven’t told him yet.”
    “You mean to say,” Florum said, as he reached out an oblong magnifying, glass from a