"Stultz, Thomas - A Gift Of Murder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stultz Thomas)

A GIFT OF MURDER
By
Thomas Stultz

Shrunken balloons absently kicked by Derek Naile's bobbing foot scuttled away across the carpet like fat bright beetles. Mr. Naile flipped the 121st page of 'Smile with a Bullet' and gave himself a pause. A stack of paperbacks, yellow on the edge of the page, smelling of the garages and thrift store basements they were rescued from, rested on the desktop to his right. Mr. Naile's fiftieth birthday party wound up around ten, but hours before that Mr. Naile had stole away with his cache: a plate full of cake, the once-a-year bottle of scotch his brother always sent, and a new addition to his library.

Mr. Naile, on anticipation of the usual birthday gifts, had been busying himself in his workshop during the past days crafting a few more shelves for the crammed study. This after-supper activity left him little time to catch up on the short stories in the half-dozen mystery magazines that arrived each month. He had been sustaining himself on these, staving off a trip into the city to replenish his stock of paperbacks, because he knew that's what his family would be giving him. He accepted his presents with a joy unmatched by any child, and his wife would always find something special for him. This year Smile with a Bullet, the original hardcover version which she must have searched very hard for, was something he just couldn't wait to begin.

Juliana let him disappear far before the party was over, taking pleasure in the fact that her gift brought him so much. Mr. Naile was never very good at parties anyway.

He reached out a finger, wiping a patina of yellow frosting from the plate. Bringing the fingertip to his lips, he forced himself to close the cover just for a bit. It was an even summer night, but a breeze slipped in through an open window to shuffle the birthday cards propped up on his desk. One from Kevin, his son away studying theater at college, remained standing. His book took the place of the card, and he read it to himself again.

Happy Birthday Dad! Sorry, but there's much going on here at campus with rehearsals - I'm afraid I won't make it home in time for your birthday celebration. Why did you have to be born during finals anyway? We'll have to do something about that sometime. Heck, this might be a good thing, because I haven't had the time to shop for a gift. But don't worry, I promise I'll have something special to bring home next time I can make it. Love, Kevin

Mr. Naile loved him too, but he wished for something else that the boy would be interested in for his college studies. Acting seemed like such a long shot - Not that he wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps, accounting may provide a fine lifestyle, but it didn't do much for thrills. That's why Mr. Naile always had his escapes. Family life was always happy, but between the pages of a good mystery, now that's where Mr. Naile always liked to be. Of all the things a man could choose to do, in Mr. Naile's opinion, acting was probably one of the hardest roads to walk. God bless him anyway, he was working hard at his studies.

He replaced the card on the desk, crowding his mystery and the tumbler of scotch. He reached out, thought he might have another sip of the aged, peaty liquid, but opted for the book instead. It was getting late, and he wanted to get through to the climax before getting sleepy. The author was building up a pretty good head of steam; already several victims, three different women (Mr. Naile preferred the brunette), two suspects and the obvious red herring. The hero still didn't know who was behind it all, but Mr. Naile knew. He always knew. If he could just get to climax, then he'd go to bed happy. The denouement could wait until breakfast.

Carefully bending the spine he attempted to get back to page 121, but something caught his eye. A shadow across the eaves of the garage grew larger, twisting around the corner into an elliptical shape that a human form might throw, then disappeared. He was up from his desk, book tumbling to the floor. He heard it above the breeze, the crunch of footfalls on the gravel path that led from the back door of the study out to the garage. He slid open his pencil drawer and retrieved something his son gave him last year. A prop gun, almost a joke really, salvaged from the university's costume department along with a magnifying glass and a trench coat. Mr. Naile dimmed the lights and held out the gun before him. It might be a prop, but it was a good prop. No one would know the difference in this light. As he knew from his books, a gun in your hand was all about the way in which you held it. Guns didn't work without the attitude, real or not.

He scanned through the windows across the back. With the lights low he could now see more than just shadows. All appeared quiet across the lawn, but as he brought his attention back to the room he saw the flash of a hand reaching through the far window. Damn, what a night to leave the screens up! It was a man's hand, turned up with the palm slowly pressing against the window, raising it.

Mr. Naile calmed his breath, and told his arm to stop shaking. Gun aloft he crept across the study and stood before the window. The hand reached through the opening, elongating into an arm wrapped in a dirty white sweater. The arm pulled the torso of a body up over the sill, and Mr. Naile lowered the muzzle of the prop against the back of the intruder's head.

"I believe you have the wrong house." Mr. Naile said evenly, proud of how calm his voice sounded. He hoped the intruder would recognize the feel of the shape pressed into his skull. The prop was a solid piece, but Mr. Naile didn't have the luxury of announcing his weapon with a clicking of a hammer like they were always doing on television. Mr. Naile felt the man freeze, and took a moment to examine him while he held him so trapped. The sandy hair was familiar, wispy like his own. And there was a scar across the back of the visible hand. A fading crescent, a shape Mr. Naile knew. It was left by the pedal of a bicycle years ago that scraped him when he fell off.

"Kevin?" Mr. Naile asked.

"Dad?" Kevin wondered, breathless in his position over the sill. "T-take it easy okay."

Mr. Naile slipped the prop into his waistband, and pulled his son through the window. "Glad you could make it home son, but just what kind of entrance is this? The party's over kid, they yelled surprise six hours ago."

Mr. Naile marveled at his son's appearance. Kevin was a very neat kid and seeing him like this - something was wrong. The sweater was torn, dark with splotches of mud across his arms and chest. His boots spat small clods of earth as he moved. Scratches on his face seeped blood. His features screwed up into a pinch, and he clutched at his father's chest, trying to keep his sobs quiet. Kevin hadn't held him like this since he was a boy, and Mr. Naile let himself enjoy the contact before consoling him. "Kevin, relax now boy, you're home. Whatever's the matter you've got to tell me." Mr. Naile steered Kevin towards his chair as he spoke, guiding him with words and steady pushes. As Kevin was seated, Mr. Naile remembered his scotch and pulled a soothing mouthful.

"Why don't you start by telling me how it is you're down here." He offered the glass to Kevin, who sipped and seemed thankful. Kevin held the glass between his hands and kept his eyes on it. He breathed through his nose, and after a time he felt calm enough to speak.

"Beth is dead." Kevin whispered. He drank a bit more, and repeated, "Dead."

"Now what are you talking about? Beth, your steady?" Mr. Naile had heard about Beth from his wife, but he had never paid attention to the details.

"My fiance." Kevin sighed. "My ex-fiance." Mr. Naile patted his shoulder and gave him a moment to explain.

"Beth and I were having some troubles. Things weren't going well." Kevin's words crushed into a whimper. He bent over and took deep breaths.

Mr. Naile anticipated the explanation. Somewhere within he would find a point to focus on to help him calm his son. Mr. Naile was never very good at connecting with people, even his own family. He found people and all their troubles hard to understand unless it was spelled out in 10-point type across the page. That's why he always retreated into his novels. Some gumshoe gets framed for murder, or one of his clients gets killed - now all that, the rage, the frustration of the character, that he could open up to. He knew what he'd say, and often say it right to the open page - "Stick with it detective, you'll show them all in the end." But when his wife came home wearing the frown of a bad day at work - he might be able to offer a smile, a sigh to let her know he understood. Trouble was, he didn't. Kevin was laying the biggest problem of his life at his feet, and Mr. Naile knew he had to stick in there and find something he could understand.

Kevin was a handsome boy, and he had a string of girlfriends he went steady with through high school. Sooner or later they'd break up, Kevin usually playing the sap in the end. Mr. Naile always avoided him during these periods, and let Juliana take care of the broken heart. But this was different. Beth was taken away from Kevin not because of his softness, but by blind, bad luck. Whatever took her must have been sudden, for if she was ill Kevin would have told his mother about it, and Mr. Naile would hear it over the dinner table. Mr. Naile began reading ahead - Car wreck? Skiing accident? Suicide? Oh no, not that.

Kevin regained his breath, and began again. "We had tried to get parts in the same productions, but we never had any luck as a team. Our rehearsal schedules were always different - she'd get jealous of the female leads in my show, and I'd get mad when she'd put me off to rehearse with the males in hers." Kevin swallowed more from the glass as he told. Emotions turning to anger as he remembered the recent past. "Finally at one casting call where she didn't make the cut, the guys went second and I was up. She showed up with another friend from a previous production to watch. Right in the middle of my monologue she gives him a kiss - just to throw me off and it did. I've lost my concentration and I've flubbed it enough to know I lost the part, so I stop right in the middle of the speech and walk off the stage and let them both have it." Kevin stood up and slammed the empty tumbler on his father's desk. "The guy actually laughed at me. He said I couldn't act my way through a church group production of Spoon River." Kevin was almost shouting. Then he dropped his tone.