School Days Read Online Free

and as simple as I can. We don’t want you around here, nosing into a case that is already closed.”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd we are prepared to make it very unpleasant for you if you persist.”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou have anything to say to that?” Cromwell said.
    â€œHow about, Great Caesar’s Ghost!” I said.
    Cromwell kept the dead-eyed stare on me.
    â€œOr maybe just an audible swallow,” I said.
    Cromwell kept the stare.
    â€œA little pallor?” I said.
    Cromwell stared at me some more.
    â€œGet the hell out of here,” Cromwell said finally.
    I stood.
    â€œYou must have screwed this up pretty bad,” I said.
    â€œIf you’re smart, you son of a bitch,” Cromwell said, “you won’t be back.”
    â€œI never claimed smart,” I said, and walked out the door.
    At least he didn’t shoot me.

6
    F RESH FROM MY TRIUMPH with the Chief of Police, I thought I might as well go and charm the kid’s lawyer, too.
    Richard Leeland had an office in a small shopping center, upstairs over the village grocery. From his window you could look at the eighteenth-century meeting house which lent New England authenticity to the town common, so you wouldn’t get confused and think you were in Chicago.
    â€œWow,” he said, “a private eye. We don’t run into many private eyes out here.”
    â€œYour loss,” I said.
    â€œI’m sure,” Leeland said. “May I ask you a question?”
    He was a tall, slim man with a well-tanned bald head. He looked like he’d be good at tennis or bike riding.
    â€œSure.”
    â€œWho hired you to try and clear Jared?”
    â€œYou don’t know?” I said.
    Leeland smiled.
    â€œIt’s why I’m asking,” he said.
    I thought about it for a minute. It made no sense that he didn’t know, and it made no sense for me to keep secrets from my client’s lawyer.
    â€œHis grandmother,” I said.
    â€œOh, God,” Leeland said, “Lily.”
    â€œOh, God?” I said.
    â€œShe means well,” Leeland said, “but she’s beginning to show her age.”
    I nodded. Leeland was silent, his left hand at his mouth, looking at me, squeezing his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. I waited.
    After a while he said, “Jared confessed, you know.”
    I nodded.
    â€œThe Grant kid says Jared was with him.”
    I nodded.
    â€œDoesn’t that seem like you really have no case?” Leeland said.
    â€œI have a case,” I said. “I just don’t know the outcome.”
    â€œThe boy’s guilty,” Leeland said.
    â€œMrs. Ellsworth thinks otherwise.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Spenser. She wouldn’t believe it if she saw him do it.”
    â€œSo you’re going to plead him?”
    â€œGuilty, see if we can bargain.”
    â€œHow about insanity?” I said.
    â€œHe knew what he did was wrong,” Leeland said.
    â€œIrresistible compulsion?” I said.
    He shrugged.
    â€œWon’t fly,” he said.
    â€œYou have a shrink talk to him?” I said.
    â€œWe have the Dowling Academy consulting psychologist.”
    I nodded. “Name?”
    â€œWhy do you want to know?” Leeland said.
    â€œI want to talk with him or her.”
    â€œI don’t know if I should tell you,” Leeland said.
    â€œYou think I can’t find the name of the Dowling Academy consulting shrink?” I said.
    Leeland shrugged.
    â€œHer,” he said. “Dr. Blair, Beth Ann Blair.”
    â€œSee,” I said, “how easy that was?”
    â€œMr. Spenser,” Leeland said. “The boy is guilty. I know it, his parents know it, everyone knows it.”
    â€œExcept Mrs. Ellsworth,” I said.
    Leeland ignored me.
    â€œMy job,” he said, “quite frankly, is to try and soften the consequences the best way I can.”
    I nodded.
    â€œHave you ever tried a murder case?”