"Broussard, John A - Kay Yoshinobu - Death In The Reading Room" - читать интересную книгу автора (Broussard John A)

= "Death in the Reading Room"
A Kay Yoshinobu mystery
by John A. Broussard


Kay Yoshinobu was looking forward to a quiet day at the office. No court appearances, just a few routine motions to be filed. Maybe, with luck, she and her husband Sid Chu could take the afternoon off and get in a couple of sets before the tennis courts got crowded.

Yoshito Yamamoto dashed those hopes. He was sitting in the reception area, and the expression on his face told Kay that his son Tom was in trouble again.

She wasn't wrong, but it was more than trouble this time. It was murder.

Settling down in her office chair with a legal pad in front of her, she listened to Yoshito's scanty explanation. "The police say he had drugs in his possession. They followed him into the library, and that's when they found Miller Bork stabbed to death in the reading room."

"Why do they suspect Tom?"

His face still creased with worry, Yoshito tried to explain, but it soon became evident that what he knew was too hazy to be very informative. The weapon was missing, but Tom had owned a knife that could have caused the fatal wound. No drugs were found on him when he was arrested in the library, but the police's drug-sniffing dog quickly located a stash, hidden behind books, within sight of the reading room and within Miller Bork's range of vision. The conclusion? Tom killed Miller in order to keep him from telling the police where the drugs he had brought into the library were hidden.

To Kay, the evidence sounded flimsy. She checked her watch, knowing that a good share of the day would now have to be devoted to interviewing Tom, preparing for arraignment and somehow sorting out what had really happened.

* * *

Tom's appearance was startlingly different. Not his physical appearance--the double earring, scraggly beard, faded tank top, baggy shorts and beat-up jogging shoes hadn't changed appreciably from his last time in the interrogation room. But something more subtle had happened. Rather than the arrogant expression of the past, the babyish face held terror. For the first time since she'd known this offspring of a family friend, Kay saw something else--a glimmer of hope for Tom and perhaps less unhappiness for his parents. This sudden charge of murder, with all that it implied, could turn this worthless troublemaker into a son who would no longer be a heartache for his parents. Providing, of course, that he hadn't killed Miller Bork.

She gave him no smile. Offered no hand. She simply sat down across from him, opened her legal pad, placed the tape recorder on the table, pressed the record button and said, "Tell me what happened."

He was eager to talk, words stumbling over words. "I was supposed to meet Chili--I don't know his last name--that may not be his real name--on Front Street, outside the Anna Mall, behind Liberty House. I guess the cops were out on a drug bust--dogs and all. Chili saw them first and ran. They charged after him, and I took off into the mall and into the library. I was going to flush the dope down the toilet, but the door was locked, so I stashed it behind some books. I was about to duck out when the cops came in. By then, whoever it was in the can had left, so I went in there. Then...."

Kay interrupted the flow and was unable to keep the anger out of her voice. "Before you go any further, let's settle one thing first. I've defended you a half-dozen times, but that was small-time crime. This isn't. What I want to know is, did you kill Miller Bork?"

Tom threw up both hands, palms outward, as though trying to ward off a blow. "No! No! No! I didn't even know he was there. I walked by the reading room before hiding the dope, but I didn't see him. Didn't see anyone. Far as I could tell, the library was deserted except for the lady at the front desk."

The woman at the front desk! That would be the beginning point. Despite Tom's obvious terror, Kay knew him too well to simply take what he was telling her at face value.

* * *

As she left the police station, Kay realized yet again about how fortunate she was to be practicing law in a small community. As usual, the sergeant at the desk was most helpful: the tape closing off the library would be down at eight the following morning, and the homicide scene would then be returned to the public. Kay was welcome to go there the following day and inspect to her heart's content.

She arrived early and so did the librarian, Shirley Cheung, a grey-haired woman in her early fifties. Kay already had a nodding acquaintance with Shirley--another advantage of the small town--and the librarian was eager to talk about the events of the previous day. Since official library hours didn't begin until nine, the two women adjourned to the back room to talk over coffee.

Shirley kept shaking her head. "Why anyone would want to hurt Mr. Bork is beyond me. You know he was the inventor and developer of that early microchip?"

Kay nodded.

"He made a fortune and was giving it away almost as fast as he made it." Shirley waved a hand in the direction of the hammering coming from outside the south side of the building. "He paid for the whole addition. And he even covered the operating costs. Instead of a couple of high school kids to help reshelve, I'm going to have a full-time library assistant working here, thanks to Mr. Bork. And we'll have decent library hours for a change."

"Could you tell me exactly what happened yesterday?"

"Not really. But I can tell you who was here and when. There weren't many patrons. Come out to the desk. I can tell you times and everything. It's all on the computer."

Shirley gave a running commentary as she punched the keys. "I got here about half-past nine. Yesterday, the library was scheduled to open at ten, so that gave me time to check the books in that had been dropped off overnight. The first persons here at ten were Mr. Bork and his sister, Arlene Francisco. See?" She pointed to the screen. "Mrs. Francisco dropped off two books. Then the two of them went back to the reading room. Mr. Bork had an armful of books, but he didn't drop them off. He liked to spend time in the reading room, and lately he was working on genealogies. He was really caught up in that, especially after he found out he was related to the Bork who used to be Attorney General and, you know, the one the Senate refused to confirm for the Supreme Court."