"Grafton, Sue - C is for Corpse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grafton Sue)

I shrugged. "I tend to look at that first, especially in a situation like this when it sounds like there's a lot."

"What else could it be? What could anyone have against him?"

"People murder for absurd reasons. Someone gets into a rage over something and retaliates. People get jealous or want to defend themselves from a real or imagined attack. Or they've done something wrong and they kill to cover it up. Sometimes it doesn't even make that much sense. Maybe Bobby cut someone off in a lane change that night and the driver followed him all the way up the pass. People go nuts in cars. I take it he wasn't in the middle of a hassle with anyone?"

"Not that I was aware of"

"Nobody mad at him? A girl friend maybe?"

"I doubt it. He was going with someone at the time, but it was a fairly casual relationship from what I could tell. Once this happened, we didn't see much of her. Of course, Bobby changed. You don't come that close to death without paying a penalty. Violent death is like a monster. The closer you get to it, the more damage you sustain . . . if you survive at all. Bobby's had to pull himself out of the grave, step by step. He's different now. He's looked into the monsters face. You can see the claw marks on his body everywhere."

I glanced away from her. It was true. Bobby looked like he had been attacked: torn and broken and mauled. Violent death leaves an aura, like an energy field that repels the observer. I've never looked at a homicide victim yet without a quick recoil. Even photographs of the dead chill and repulse me.

I shifted back to the matter at hand. "Bobby said he was working for Dr. Fraker at the time."

"That's right. Jim F rakers been a friend of mine for years. That s why Bobby was hired at St. Terry's, as a matter of fact. As a favor to me."

"How long had he worked there?"

"At the hospital itself, maybe four months. He'd been working for Jim in Pathology for two months, I think."

"And what did he actually do?"

"Cleaned equipment, ran errands, answered the phone. It was all routine. They'd taught him to do a few lab tests and sometimes he monitored machinery, but I can't imagine his job entailed anything that would endanger his life."

"He had his degree from UCST by then, I gather," I said, repeating what Bobby'd told me.

"That's right. He was working temporarily, hoping to get accepted to med school. His first applications had been turned down."

"How come?"

"Oh, he got cocky and only applied to about five schools. He'd always been an excellent student and he'd never failed at anything in his life. He miscalculated. Med schools are ferociously competitive and he simply didn't get accepted to the ones he tried for. It set him back on his heels for a time, but he'd rallied, I think. I know he felt the job with Dr. Fraker was valuable, because it gave him some exposure to disciplines he wouldn't otherwise have known about until much later in the game."

"What else was going on in his life at that point?"

"Not a lot. He went to work. He dated. He did some weight lifting, surfed now and then. He went to movies, went out to dinner with us. It all seemed very ordinary at the time and it seems very ordinary looking back."

There was another avenue I needed to explore and I wondered how she would react. "Were he and Kitty involved with one another sexually?"

"Ah. Well, I can't really answer that. I have no idea.".

"But it's possible."

"I suppose so, though I don't think it's likely. Derek and I have been together since she was thirteen. Bobby was eighteen, nineteen, something like that. Out of the house at any rate. I do think Kitty was smitten with him. I don't know how he felt about her, but I can't believe a thirteen-year-old would interest him in the least."

"She's grown up pretty fast from what I've seen."

She crossed her legs restlessly, wrapping one around the other. "I don't understand why you're pursuing this point."