The Rules of Dreaming Read Online Free Page A

68 years old. Miss Whipple ran the library singlehandedly, with assistance two afternoons a week from a high school student whose alphabetical skills remained open to question. She wore sensible shoes with laces and flat heels, a cardigan sweater even on the warmest days, and a pair of no-nonsense trifocals through which she could simultaneously read the mail, keep an eye on the door, and shoot piercing glances all the way across the room in her lifelong struggle against whisperers, misfilers and book defacers.  
    “What brings you to the library this afternoon?” Miss Whipple inquired as Dubin stood leafing through the local newspaper.
    “Research,” he answered without thinking.
    “Are you a writer?”
    “Yes.  I’m a kind of journalist.”
    “Now let me guess.”  She peered at Dubin over the tops of her trifocals, as if in the suspicion that none of their refractions would reveal the truth about him.   “Do you write about politics?”
    “Not really,” he smiled.  “I’m primarily interested in unsolved crimes.”
    “True Crime,” she nodded.  “My favorite category.”   She pointed to a crowded shelf along the wall.  “It’s an excellent collection.” 
    Her tone of voice told him that she was referring to the True Crime section, and that he ignored it at his peril.  “Oh, I’m sure it is,” he assured her.  “It’s just that—well, those stories have already been told.  I’m always on the lookout for something new.”
    She smiled knowingly.  “Some unsolved crime that everyone seems to have forgotten?”
    “Exactly.”  There was something in her manner that told him he’d better start paying attention.  “Do you know of any?”
    “I’ve lived in this town all my life,” she said.  “I know a few things.” 
    “Give me an example.”
    “Well”—she looked around to make sure no one else was listening—“I don’t know if it’s an unsolved crime or not.  At the time they said it was a suicide.  But you know, it was Maria Morgan, the opera singer.  Seven years ago, she was found dead in her studio out on the Warwick road.  She was about to make her Metropolitan Opera debut and one day as she was practicing, she just suddenly couldn’t take the pressure anymore—that’s what they said, anyway—and she hanged herself.  With her two children in the house.”
    “When did you say this was?  Seven years ago? ”
    “That’s right.”  She rifled through a stack of papers on her desk and pulled out a manila folder that held a sheaf of yellowed newspaper clippings.  “Maybe you’d like to read these.  They tell the whole story.”
    Dubin sat down at an isolated table and read the clippings over and over again.  He liked what he read.  Maria Morgan’s death had everything he looked for in a new project.  A glamorous woman with everything to live for, a violent, unexplained death, an aroma of official ineptitude or corruption—and rich people running for cover in a dozen different directions.  But wasn’t the story too old and cold to be of any value?  Dubin had already decided to get out of the business, even if sometimes it gave him the illusion of bringing justice to a corrupt world.  In his kind of detective work he wasn’t hindered by Miranda warnings, rules of evidence or statutes of limitation; he oppressed only the rich, never the weak and downtrodden.  His was the underside of the law, the shadow side that remained invisible in a world where everything had its price.  But the official side—the world of real detectives who carried badges and could put you away for the rest of your life—seemed to be closing in.  One more case was all he had time for and all he really needed before he could retire.  “What are you doing with these old newspaper clippings right in the middle of your desk?” he asked the librarian.
    “Let’s j ust say I have my reasons.”
    “ Such as?”
    “We librarians have our ethics, just as you journalists