Extenuating Circumstances Read Online Free Page B

piddling, inexact machinery of justice.
    "They're going to need you to identify the car and Lessing's belongings."
    "I don't want to do it," he said flatly.
    "It's you or Janey."
    Trumaine half smiled, as if in the back of his mind he'd already known it would come to that. He took a big swig of scotch, then got to his feet, digging fecklessly at his loose blue shirttail.
    "I ought to call a few of Ira's friends. Somebody should be here when Janey and Meg get back. I'd better call my sister, Fran, too, in Louisville."
    "Make your calls," I said. "I'll meet you at the car."
 
 
    Nobody said a word on the short, hot ride across the river to Queensgate. Trumaine stared out the side window, trying like hell to hold himself together in the boiling, fetid air of the police cruiser. It was an environment he hadn't experienced -the backseat of a police car, with its handleless doors, its windows that open a finger's width and no more, its jail smells of dirt, destitution, and fear. I'd made the trip before, and I wasn't any more comfortable than he was. Riding in the back of a cop car always made me squirm.
    In the front Finch played finger games on the steering wheel. Now and then the radio squawked like a startled crow. The misty river went by us in a blur of bridge struts and passing cars. Then we were on the expressway, in the concrete bottom of the old industrial basin. Then we were off the highway, on the worn brick border of the projects. And then we were there -at the Union Terminal, its huge half-dome looming like a band shell on a vast lawn of glaring concrete.
    We'd arrived too quickly for Len Trumaine. I could see it in his face, the way his eyes and mouth dropped as if he'd been slugged, the motion of his throat as if he were trying to swallow but didn't have the spit. He needed more time to prepare himself. And for just a second, as the car pulled up in front of the old train depot plaza, I was afraid he was going to panic. But he didn't.
    He got out into the shade of the front awning and looked up at the enormous Art Deco facade of the Terminal, at the huge iron clock on the mullioned windows of the half-dome. "Five o'clock," he said, as if he was fixing the hour in his mind.
    Out in the lot three other police cruisers were parked beside a silver BMW 325i. A yellow bunting of ribbon had been strung around the car to cordon it off. Even at that hour of the afternoon, in that heat, there was a small crowd of people trying to catch a look. Well-dressed clerks and shoppers from the Terminal stores, bandy old men from the neighborhood, teenage kids in T-shirts and ragged cutoffs. An insectile van with a TV antenna looming from its back like a beetle's wing stood beside the cruisers. A sweating newsman was rehearsing for a Minicam operator, using the BMW for backdrop.
    "Do the newsmen have to be there?" Trumaine said to Finch.
    "I'll scare 'em off." Finch started across the lot toward the car.
    Trumaine watched him closely.
    "Are you all right?" I asked.
    "No." He chirruped nervously, a high-pitched squawk like the sound of the police radio.
    I patted his arm. "You're doing fine."
    "You think so? When I got out of the car, I was afraid my legs wouldn't work."
    "You'll make it."
    "This is just the start, isn't it?" he said.
    I told him the truth. "I'm afraid so."
    "Oh, it's all right," he said with eerie serenity. And I realized again that some part of him was resigned to self-sacrifice. Not even bitterly resigned to it.
    But resigned to it as if it were his lot, as if it were the price he paid for staying close to Janey Lessing. I hoped the sacrifice was worth it, because he was showing a lot of guts and I liked him for it.
    After he'd cleared the area of newsmen, Finch waved us over to the BMW. The passenger-side door hung open, and even at a distance you could see the dark bloodstains covering the leather seat. Then you could smell the foul stench of decaying blood.
    Trumaine covered his mouth and gagged. "Christ," he