Free The Suspect by L. R. Wright Page B

her nose was small. He saw her face become pink and realized that he'd been staring at her. He looked away, up at the clock on the wall. "I've just got time, before I get back to work.”
    She got a blank card from a desk drawer and sat down at a manual typewriter. "Full name, please," she said briskly.
    "Alberg, Martin Karl." He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned over to watch her type. She was wearing a blue and white pinstriped dress. There was a gold chain around her neck and a gold watch on her wrist; gifts, he wondered? No rings, and her nails were short; she used colorless polish on them. She was tall, about five feet nine, and weighed about 140 pounds. He didn't know why he said it. He didn't often act on his more mischievous impulses. "Are you looking for a husband?"
    He watched her face, knowing that his own was smooth, expressionless.
    She looked up at him quickly, and although her face burned with embarrassment she didn't look away. Her hands were poised over the typewriter keys. "Are you looking for another wife?"
    He shook his head.
    "Then you have come," she said coldly, "to precisely the right place." She turned back to the card in the typewriter.
    "Address, please."
    "The directors' house, Gibsons."
    "And is this the book you wish to take out?" She pointed to The Life of Catherine the Great , which lay on the counter between them.
    He looked at it in astonishment, unable to remember how it had gotten there. "Yes," he said humbly. "I'll start with this one. Has it got anything about pruning in it, do you know?” She gave him not the glimmer of a smile.
 
    CHAPTER 10
    He went from the library to George Wilcox's house and parked his car on the verge of the road twenty feet from the gate leading to the old man's front yard. It was his own car, a 1979 four-door Oldsmobile, nothing splashy, nothing special, except for the police radio.
    Alberg crunched along the gravel shoulder toward the gate. The fence was sturdy, but in need of painting. There was a well-trimmed evergreen hedge behind it, and between the hedge and the front of the house was five feet of neatly clipped lawn. The house itself was short and squat, with small windows and a small square porch; it, too, could have used a few coats of paint. And who am I, thought Alberg gloomily, to talk about decrepit-looking houses. At least this one had a neat border of flowers in front of it, instead of a tropical thicket.
    He turned into the yard, closing the gate behind him, and went up a cracked concrete walk to the porch. The door was opened before he could knock. George Wilcox peered up at him. He didn't say anything.
    "Hi," said Alberg, finally.
    "Why don't you ever wear a uniform?"
    "It's distracting.”
    "No uniform, no police car. How am I supposed to take you seriously?”
    Alberg thought about it. "I've got my badge," he said, and showed it to him. "Does that help?”
    "What about a gun? You got a gun?”
    "Not with me. Why, do you think I'll need one?"
    "No need for sarcasm, sonny. The badge will do." He stepped back and opened the door wide.
    Alberg squeezed through the tiny hall and into a narrow living room. The high small windows admitted very little light. An oatmeal-colored sofa and a matching armchair, and two occasional chairs upholstered in red wool, sat on the dark brown wall-to-wall carpeting. The windowsills were cluttered with objects: two fat-cheeked Toby mugs; a brass candle snuffer and two brass candlesticks, empty; what appeared to be a wooden salt shaker and pepper mill; a pair of shell casings—standard mementos of the Second World War, except for some unusual decorative work; a pipe holder containing no pipes; two china figurines, possibly Hummel; three china roses in a marble base. There was a television set in one comer, and a collapsed card table leaned against a wall. Everything seemed very dusty.
    "Don't use this room much,” said George Wilcox. "Come on into the kitchen.” He waved Alberg on toward the back of the