Free The Killing Type by Wayne Jones Page B

chair and take the
opportunity to do absolutely nothing, a real luxury for me. A
kettle whistles shrilly in the kitchen for a few seconds and then
goes quiet. There’s a brief rattle of dishes, the fridge door opens
and closes, and finally she appears in front of me with a tray of
delights.
    “Let me take that,” I say
gallantly.
    “Thank you.”
    She sits in a chair beside me and sets
out a cup and saucer for each of us. The pouring is a careful
operation: she tips the pot slowly with her right hand and places
the index finger of her left on the lid of the pot so that it won’t
fall off. The cups full, she sets the pot down and fans her hand
over a plate of assorted biscuits, apparently shortbread and with
some of them covered in chocolate.
    “That’s so nice of you,” I say, taking
one of each and setting them on my napkin on the coffee table. We
both settle back in our chairs.
    “That’s a terrible business about the
murders, though,” she says, as if the domestic comfort of our
situation demands to be counterbalanced with harsh
reality.
    “Yes,” I say. “Hard to know what to
make of it. Are you OK? I mean, you’re not nervous about just going
about your daily life, are you?”
    She laughs.
    “Oh, no, I don’t think like that. I’m
an old lady as you can see, but I don’t worry about that kind of
thing. When the Good Lord feels that it is my time for Him to call
me home, then that will be my time. Until that happens”—she takes a
bit of a cookie, and then a sip of tea as if to emphasize her
point—“I’ll go on living my life as I always have.”
    “That seems like an eminently healthy
outlook,” I tell her sincerely, sipping my own tea (it is
exquisite, I notice, and attribute that to practice).
    “Tell me,” she says, her
stare more piercing than I’ve seen it in other interactions with
her. “This book you are writing, this—it is a book , is it?”
    “Yes,” I assure her.
    “Well”—she is shaking her head and her
lips are pursed—“are you managing to find anything out? Have you
come across anything that the police have not been able
to?”
    “A lot of people ask me that, and I
wish I could say yes. But, no, so far, I haven’t found out
much.”
    She shakes her head at that, as if she
is a bit disappointed in me. She’s not, I don’t think, but I am
feeling a bit rattled with the very fact of the multiple murders
and consequently having difficulty interpreting her
mannerisms.
    “Let me tell you a little story,
Andrew, if I may.”
    “Of course.”
    “When I was a child, I had
faith in everything. God, of course, and my friends and the fact
that my parents would be always around, and generally that I was
living in a good and safe world. Firemen rescuing your cat from a
tree, policemen patting you on the head and letting you see inside
their cars. That kind of thing. Now, I am afraid, I don’t believe
in many of those things, and though I am not implying that you do
either, yet I have to mention one or two of them in particular. The
police, dearest Andrew, oh, the police. I have little confidence in
their ability to find criminals, to treat evidence with respect, to
treat people with
respect. You know the stories. Things have been good here in
Knosting only because nothing has really happened before these
murders, and so the police have had quite an easy time of it, if I
may say so. Now that a real crime has—now that real crimes have happened, I am
not sure they know what they are doing, or what they should do. You know how
they say that for murder, the killer is always the last person you
suspect? The butler did it, kind of thing? Same with the police, I
believe. I mean, they can be incompetent boobies just like anyone
else in any other profession. Especially the ones in this town. I’m
sorry, I sound bitter. I’m not really, just practical.”
    She picks up her cup and takes a long
slow sip. Her smile is impenetrable: I can’t tell if she’s nervous
or guilty or