Murder Sees the Light Read Online Free Page B

you don’t think it was an accident, are you?”
    â€œI wouldn’t go that far. What a funny idea. Why would anybody want to hurt Mr. Edgar? I could understand somebody putting a bomb under George McCord the way he zooms around the lake, but …”
    â€œIt was just a thought on a rainy afternoon. It’s just a game I play. If life’s a mystery, who are the suspects?”
    â€œHey! Your suspects are my paying customers, Of course, you are free to suspect Maggie and George McCord, and I’ll throw in the Rimmers. You can have them for nothing.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to suggest … I haven’t really met many of them.”
    â€œWell, I’ve been neglecting my duty as owner then. I’ll see that you meet all the suspects you want in the Annex tonight.”
    â€œFine. I’ll sidle over and you can fill me in when they aren’t watching.”
    Joan left a handful of change on the pine table, put on her boots and the grim expression of someone who has a generator to fix, and disappeared splashing into the subsiding weather. I pulled on a sweater, a waterproof groundsheet that also worked as a poncho, and collected my fishing gear. The red fuel tank was where I’d left it the day before. I used the rowboat in the mornings; couldn’t stand the noise of the motor until the afternoon.
    It didn’t take me long to attach the tank to the motor again and untie the soaking painter. I tipped out the puddles in the indentations in the plastic-covered cushions and steeled myself to pull the starting cord.

THREE
    â€œâ€¦ Of the nine of them, Manfred Gunning is the only one you can be sure of. At least Gunning will write a minority opinion that will go down in legal history.” It was Patten’s voice on the cassette recorder I’d planted on the island nearest the Woodward place. Not guessing that I would become a friend of the great man himself after picking him out of the water, I’d set up some fancy borrowed surveillance equipment in two plastic garbage bags under a groundsheet hidden by pine boughs and leaves. It took me five minutes to locate the hiding place myself. Inside the machine, the tiny reels turned slowly. “… It’s not Gunning I’m worried about,” Patten said in a controlled whisper. “It’s Harper, and Bartenbach, and the woman, what’shername, McCready.”
    â€œBecause they’re Democrats? Surely …”
    â€œI’m not talking politics, Ozzie. Haven’t you been listening? Harper and Bartenbach both have a history of upholding decisions made in the lower courts, everything else being equal.”
    â€œIf the decision goes against you, they’ll be opening up a can of worms that every church in the country’s going to yell about. There will be shouting from the pulpits in every hamlet in America. Think of it, Norrie.”
    â€œWhat do you imagine I’ve been thinking about? I’ve been through all the arguments. Diodati made only a third of the points I raised with him.…”
    â€œNow, Norrie …”
    â€œYou told me he was the best.”
    â€œDiodati? He is the best. He’s one of the club. You need that. You can’t parachute an outsider into Washington. They’ve got to start from the same mark. Diodati gave it his best shot.” Considering the compactness of the microphone and the distance between it and the island, I was getting excellent value from the equipment. It even knew when to turn itself on and off. I’d never want to own stuff like this; I’d use it maybe once in ten years. I moved the tape ahead. There was more crackle now. It was Patten again with Ozzie.
    â€œI want to talk to Van,” Patten said.
    â€œNorrie, please, leave him out of it.”
    â€œYou heard me. Or is he leading this vendetta against me? Maybe it’s him I can thank for dragging my name through the courts. My friends scorn me.