You'll Always Remember Me Read Online Free

“You want to help, don’t you, Martin? You don’t want to see Tommy die?”
    â€œQuit talking to me like a kid,” I said. “Sure I want to help.”
    â€œAll right. What were you doing over there that night?”
    â€œI’ve answered that a dozen times. Once in court. I was seeing Marie.”
    â€œMr. Smith—that is, her father—chased you out of the house though, didn’t he?”
    â€œHe asked me to leave,” I said.
    â€œNo, he didn’t, Martin. He ordered you out and told you not to come back again.”
    I stopped and whirled toward him. “Who told you that?”
    â€œMarie,” he said. “She was the only one who heard him. She didn’t want to say it before because she was afraid Ruth would keep her from seeing you. That little kid has a crush on you and she didn’t think that had any bearing on the case.
    â€œWell, it hasn’t, has it?”
    â€œMaybe not,” snapped Duff Ryan, “but he did chase you out, didn’t he? He threatened to use his cane on you?”
    â€œI won’t answer,” I said.
    â€œYou don’t have to,” he told me. “But I wish you’d told the truth about it in the first place.”
    â€œWhy?” We started walking again. “You don’t think I killed him, do you?” I shot a quick glance in his direction and held my breath.
    â€œNo,” he said, “nothing like that, only—”
    â€œOnly what?”
    â€œWell, Martin, haven’t you been kicked out of about every school in the State?”
    â€œI wouldn’t go so far as to say every school.”
    Duff said, “Quite a few though, eh?”
    â€œEnough,” I said.
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” he went on quietly, “I went over and had a look at your record, Martin. I wish I had thought of doing that sooner.”
    â€œListen—”
    â€œOh, don’t get excited,” he said, “this may give us new leads, that’s all. We’ve nothing against you. But when you were going to school at Hadden, you took the goat, which was a class mascot, upstairs with you one night and then pushed him down the stairs so that he broke all his legs. You did that, didn’t you?”
    â€œThe goat slipped,” I said.
    â€œMaybe,” whispered Duff. He lit a cigarette, holding onto the crippled cat with one hand. “But you stood at the top of the stairs and watched the goat suffer until somebody came along.”
    â€œI was so scared I couldn’t move.”
    â€œAnother time,” Duff continued, “at another school, you pushed a kid into an oil hole that he couldn’t get out of and you were ducking him—maybe trying to kill him—when someone came along and stopped you.”
    â€œHe was a sissy. I was just having some fun!”
    â€œAt another school you were expelled for roping a newly born calf and pulling it up on top of a barn where you stabbed it and watched it bleed to death.”
    â€œI didn’t stab it! It got caught on a piece of tin from the drain while I was pulling it up. You haven’t told any of this to Marie, have you?”
    â€œNo,” Duff said.
    â€œAll those things are just natural things,” I said. “Any kid is liable to do them. You’re just nuts because you can’t pin the guilt on anybody but the guy who is going to die Friday and you’re trying to make me look bad!”
    â€œMaybe,” Duff answered quietly, and we came into the chapel now and stopped. He dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, then patted the cat. Moonlight shone jaggedly through the rotting pillars. I could see the cat’s eyes shining. “Maybe,” Duff breathed again, “but didn’t you land in a reform school once?”
    â€œTwice,” I said.
    â€œAnd once in an institution where you were observed by a staff of doctors? It was a State institution, I think. Sort of a