"Murder In The Solid State" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

"Yes, sir," David snapped.
The scowl deepened. "I will speak with your friends, and they will take you home. The authorities believe this matter is related to Otto Vandegroot's death, and that seems like a good theory to me. But you will not test it by sulking here."
"Did you come all the way down here just to tell me that?" David asked. "No backups, go home?"
"I am the department head," Henry replied. "I will have to explain all this to the dean tomorrow morning. And about Otto, and everything that's happened. But yes, I would have come down here anyway, out of concern for you. And out of concern for you, I am now throwing you out."
"Fine," David said, sliding down off the countertop he'd been using as a seat. "I'm leaving. Thank you for your help."
"You're welcome," Henry said, choosing to ignore the irony in David's tone.

"It'll be OK," Marian said for the thousandth time as David chained and bolted his apartment door, sealing them away from the evils of the night.
"It will not," David said. "Please stop telling me that."
"What I mean is, you'll survive this."
"Probably," he agreed, meeting her ice-blue gaze. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" He turned away, grabbed his stack of mail and rifled through it as if something important might be hidden there. Nothing ever was, of course, nothing but bills and ads.
"Come on, David," Marian said, "let it go for now. Try to relax. It doesn't help you to get all twisted up right now."
"Something's happening," he said, his attention still on the mail. "I'm caught in something, and I don't know what it is. There's been a murder."
Marian absorbed this thought in silence.
"I'm scared," he said, only just realizing this himself. He felt hollow, ringing with loss and confusion and pain, and part of the pain was simple fear, the sharp, glittery edges of it cutting him up inside like bits of cold glass.
Again, Marian said nothing, but she moved in closer, pressing lightly against his back. Where they touched it was instantly warm. Her arm came around his chest, enfolding rather than squeezing. He felt the familiar sparks inside.
Turning, he dropped the mail and kissed her. His urgency surprised them both, and in another minute they were falling out of their clothes, trying to unfold the bed without breaking their mutual contact. The sheets formed an envelope of cool satin, warming rapidly as they slipped inside.
"Command: lights out," he managed to tell the computer before his brain switched off.
In the darkness their lovemaking was fluid and passionate, their bodies blending together in a single warm fog.




CHAPTER TEN

The phone was ringing, a limp electronic bleating that sounded twice, paused, then sounded twice more. "Command: no picture; answer," David said, sitting up, opening his eyes to the blankness of his sleep mask. Then, "Hello?"
"Sanger." The disembodied voice came out of David's stereo speakers. "I need to ask you some questions. It's urgent."
David slipped off the mask and rubbed his eyes. "Puckett?"
"That's right. Are you awake?" Seven-oh-eight A.M., the clock said, sitting in a little pool of fresh, glaring sunlight that made him squint. "No. What's going on?"
"We have a suspect. We need to know if you've seen him."
Now David was awake. "Suspect? You mean for my lab?"
"Maybe for everything," Puckett said. "I think you know him. It's a young guy, name of Jacobs."
"Dov Jacobs? That's impossible," David said, reaching for yesterday's shirt.
"Not impossible. He checked out of your AMFRI conference about half an hour after the murder, and he came straight back to U of Phil, by car. He was on campus at the time your laboratory was trashed. Credit reports show he's still in the area."
"I haven't seen him. Listen, this is impossible. Dov Jacobs wouldn't hurt anybody; he's a . . ."A classic nerd. Smart, small-framed. Gets bloody noses running down stairs too fast. "He's a pussycat."
"Otto Vandegroot sued him and won," Puckett said.
That was true, but. . . Dov?
"This doesn't make any sense."
"Has he ever been in your lab?"
"Sure," David said, "lots of times."
"How recently?"
"I. . . I don't know. A few months ago, maybe."
"His fingerprints are all over the place. It's not conclusive, but we're certainly going to pick this guy up and talk to him. Do you know where he might be staying?"
"In his dorm room?" David asked, using one stupid question to answer another.
"Nope. His door hasn't been opened since Friday. We dumped the records."
David felt a chill. Those damn door-lock records again. When had doors started turning into police informants?
"I haven't seen him. I don't know where he is."
Puckett paused. "We'll find him. Get back to you later."
"OK," David said. "Command: exit."
A dial tone replaced Puckett's voice, and was in turn replaced by silence.