Free The Suspect - L R Wright by L. R. Wright

seller."
    "Yeah, Sid, but why? He didn't take anything from the house.
What was the motive?"
    "He went berserk," said Sokolowski promptly. He spread
his hands. "It happens, Karl. You know it happens.”
    "Okay, but if he went berserk it must have been as soon as he
walked in the door," said Alberg dryly. "He'd been
to—what?—three houses before Burke's. And he wasn't berserk then.
He wasn't armed, either. What did he hit him with?"
    "Maybe he found something in the house," said
Sokolowski, after a moment's thought. "And then took it away
with him. And Karl, it's kind of peculiar, isn't it, that he didn't
stop at anybody's place after Burke's? People up the road saw his van
drive by, but he didn't stop.”
    "Maybe he ran out of fish.” Alberg sighed. "Yeah,
okay, I agree, he's our best bet. For the moment." He got his
suit jacket from the rack in the corner.
    "Who'd you have lunch with?" said the sergeant,
grinning. Alberg looked at him coldly.
    "It's a small town," said Sokolowski. "So who was
it?”
    "A librarian," said Alberg, with dignity. He threw his
jacket over his shoulder. From the reception area, the parrot
squawked.
    "Jesus,” said the staff sergeant.
 
    CHAPTER 9
    " Is it always this busy in here?" There was
nobody in the library except Cassandra, and now him.
    She turned quickly from the cart filled with books
ready for reshelving. "Oh, heavens, yes. We're a regular beehive
of activity. " She smiled, automatically. He wasn't at all sure
she was glad to see him.
    "It's a very nice library,” said Alberg.
    " I get the feeling you haven't been in many.”
    "Of course I have,” he said, irritated. "It's
not where I spend most of my time,' maybe, but I use the library,
just like anybody else." He wondered why he hadn't thought to go
there for a book about pruning.
    She went back to putting books away. "This is
the slowest part of the day. The old people come in the morning,
usually. The kids come in after school. And working people come in
the evenings, or on Saturdays. I'm surprised to see you again so
soon. I thought you had a funeral to go to."
    He watched her shelve a biography of Churchill. "I
did. I went. It's over. Doesn't anybody else work here?”
    " I've got a couple of volunteers. That's all.
But from two until four every day, I'm usually on my own. Whose
funeral was it?"
    " Carlyle Burke's. Did he come here in the
mornings?”
    She looked puzzled.
    " You said the old people usually come to the
library in the mornings.” He took from the shelf a book entitled The Life of Catherine the Great and hefted it in his hand as if trying to determine its weight.
    " Oh. Yes." She reached down to get two more
books from the cart. "But not him. I don't remember ever seeing
him in here."
    " You didn't know him, then." He noticed
that as she shelved the books she pulled some slightly farther out
and pushed some farther in, to even them out, and then, unthinking,
ran her fingers along the spines as if playing a harp.
    "No, I never met him," said Cassandra. "I
think my mother knew him, though. She knows everybody.”
    "How about George Wilcox? Does he come in the
mornings?"
    She pushed the cart across an open space furnished
with easy chairs and low tables to a row marked SOCIOLOGY. "Mostly
in the mornings,” she said, "but evenings, too, and sometimes
afternoons. It depends on the weather. He spends a lot of time in his
garden.”
    Alberg walked aimlessly to the window. A tall plant
stood there, in a big white pot. Its huge wide leaves looked glossy,
almost wet; he touched one of them curiously.
    "I can't imagine,” said Cassandra, "finding
a body. Well, I can imagine it .... "
    He rejoined her just as she was ready to move the
cart again. He got out of the way and followed her to the fiction
section.
    " I can't understand why anybody would kill an
old man," said Cassandra, looking up at him from her crouched
position on the floor by a lower shelf. "What reason could
anybody possibly have for doing a thing like