"Westlake, Donald E as Stark, Richard - Parker 09 - The Split (The Seventh) 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

Parker moved on and switched on the bathroom light, and this room, too, was empty. He left the light on and went past there and when he got even with the bedroom doorway he looked in and she was sitting there on the bed.

At first he didn't see the hilt, and he thought she'd just fallen asleep again.

She was sitting there just the same as when he'd left, legs crossed tailor fashion, back against the headboard of the bed, arms at her sides. A faint wisp of smoke was coming up from the area of her left hand, so she was still smoking the cigarette. Or had started a new one by now.

The only difference he saw at first was she wasn't looking up. Her head was slumped forward as though she'd fallen asleep again. Except the position looked awkward; it looked as though if she were asleep she'd fall over frontward. He looked at her from the hallway, frowning, the picture looking wrong, not understanding why yet, and then he saw the hilt jutting out from between her breasts.

Somebody had taken one of the crossed swords from the wall and jammed it through her chest and through the padded headboard of the bed and into the plasterboard of the wall. She was stuck there like a scarecrow put away for the winter.

The guy who did it had a hell of an arm. Either that, or he'd brought a sledge along to hammer it the rest of the way after the first thrust.

Parker moved deeper into the room, looking around, but there was nobody here now. The guy had been and gone.

There was practically no blood visible at all. It must have mostly gone out the back and soaked into the headboard padding.

So what now? He was supposed to stay here two more days. If he left, the others wouldn't know where to get in touch with him, and he didn't know where to get in touch with them, not easily. But he couldn't stick around with that thing on the bed.

Ten minutes. That was awfully damn fast. The guy must have been watching the place, waiting for Parker to get out of the way. As soon as Parker left, in he came, and right back out again.

Parker wondered what Ellie had done to somebody to make him that irritated with her. He'd only known her two weeks himself, and neither of them had spent much time on autobiography. This was her apartment, and he'd guessed that she'd inherited it from a man, that she'd originally lived here with somebody. The crossed swords on the wall, the beer mugs on the mantel in the living room, the round table in a corner of the living room that must have been used at one time for poker sessions, all told of a male presence here. Probably either a college boy or somebody who wished he still was a college boy.

Maybe it was the college boy who'd done it. A football hero, maybe, offensive lineman, with the meaty shoulders and blunt strength needed to wield that damn sword that way.

But it didn't matter. Parker didn't give a damn who'd killed her, or why. It aggravated him because his plans were loused up now. He had no choice; he had to get out of here.

He turned and saw Mutt and Jeff standing in the doorway, wearing rumpled police uniforms. Mutt looked surprised, as though somebody had played a dirty trick on him, and Jeff looked frightened. They were both reaching for their pistols with a clumsy haste that would have made their old instructor at the Police Academy break down and cry.

The public cries for a bigger police force and after a while any damn fool can join up if he's only tall enough.

Parker said, 'That was fast. I just called a minute ago.'

Mutt stopped where he was, but Jeff kept on tugging and actually got his revolver out in his hand. He pointed it about two feet to Parker's left and said, 'Don't move.'

Mutt told him, 'Hold on a minute.' To Parker he said, 'You're the one phoned in?'

'Sure.' Parker put an agreeable smile on his face, but he didn't feel agreeable. So the guy had come in here, killed her, waited till Parker had gone back in, and then called the cops, figuring Parker was his patsy.

He could figure again. Parker said, 'I'm the one called.'

'How come you wouldn't give your name?' Mutt was frowning all around his nose.

Parker shrugged. 'Why waste the time? I was going to stick around here anyway.'

Jeff spoke again. 'It don't smell right,' he told his partner.

Mutt said, 'We'll see.' He dragged a flat black note-book out of his pocket and flipped it open like he planned to give Parker a ticket. The notebook came with its own pencil, stuck in a little loop at the side. Mutt slid the pencil out, poised it, looked at his watch, wrote down the time, and said to Parker, 'Tell me about it.'

'I went out to get beer and cigarettes. I left it out in the hall there; you probably saw the bag.'