"TUROW, SCOTT - THE BURDEN OF PROOF" - читать интересную книгу автора (Turrow Scott)

chair, amid Clara's raiku vases and Chinese tapestries, he accepted this
like the coming true of an evil spell. He had the inkling of various
tasks that were somehow imperative, but for the time being he had no
thought to move; his limbs were weak from shock, and his heart seemed to
labor.

Peter arrived not long after the paramedics. They had already rolled
their White-sheeted cart into the garage to remove the body Wiry and
always intense, Peter had burst into the house, disregarding the
policemen at the front door. Why was it, Stern wondered, that he was so
appalled by his son's hysteria, this hyperthyroid look of uncontrollable
panic? Peter?was immaculately kempt, a bonethin young man with a highly
fashionable hairdo. He wore a blousy French shirt with broad turquoise
stripes; his pants were olive, but of a style never worn in any army,
ballooning widely near the knee. Stern, even now, could not restrict a
critical impulse. It was remarkable, really, that this man whose face
was rigid with distress had taken the time to dress.

Rising finally, he encountered his son in the hallway leading from the
foyer to the kitchen.

"I just can't believe this." Peter, like Stern, seemed to have no idea
how to behave; he moved a single step toward his father, but neither man
reached out. "My God," he said, "look at it. It's a carnival outside.
Half the neighborhood's there."

"Do they know what happened?"

"I told Fiona CawIcy." The Cawleys had lived next door to the Sterns for
nineteen years. "She more or less demanded it. You know how she is."

"Ah," Stern said. He battled himself, but he found that a selfish
shame, juvenile in its intensity, struck at him.

This terrible fact was out now, news now, known. Stern could see the
canny deliberations taking place behind Fiona Cawley's deadly yellow
eyes.

"Where is she'?." Peter demanded. "Is she still here?"

As soon as Peter had gone off to the garage, Stern recalled that he had
meant to speak with him about calling his sisters.

"Mr. Stern?" The policeman ho had gone into the garage was standing
there. "Couple of fellas wanted a word, if you don't mind."

They were in Stern's first-floor den, a tiny room that he kept largely
to himself. Clara had painted the walls hunter green and the room was
crowded with furniture, including a large desk on which certain
household papers were carefully laid. It disturbed Stern to see the