Free Brooklyn Knight by null Page A

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    “Oh, indeed, I mean, really, Knight, it doesn’t add up. Even for you—it just doesn’t make any sense.”
    Between the two detectives sat a tired and more than impatient Professor Knight. His clothing was rumpled, the back of his jacket scorched, its stitching splitting up the middle. Off to the side sat Bridget Elkins. The fourwere at the local police precinct house, an innocuous-looking stone and brick building, slotted in the center of a row of such structures. Like so many of the city’s police stations, it strove for a certain invisibility, to blend in with its urban surroundings.
    It was an idea implemented decades earlier, the foolishly idealistic notion that disguising authority would render it more palatable to those who wished it removed. It was one of the city’s numerous bits of nonsense concerning law enforcement. Knight’s favorite had always been the repainting of all squad cars to white, because their former color frightened people, and you certainly could not have people frightened of the police.
    Of course, he had thought as they entered, the endless line of police vehicles up and down the entire block outside the station house, most of them pulled up onto the sidewalk—whether they were painted white or not, whether the precinct building looked like a fort or a library—people’s reactions to authority are completely gauged by their respect for the law and nothing else.
    Looking about himself, glancing at Bridget, then Dollins, then LaRaja, the professor wondered briefly what the law had planned for him that night. The detectives had sequestered him and his assistant in one of the building’s four interrogation chambers. The room was a sullen thing, a depressing gray box with nothing in the way of amenities save the obvious two-way mirror made a cliché by so many hundreds of movies and television shows.
    The two police officers, both longtime acquaintances of Knight’s, had assured him that no one was observing them. The professor did not care whether someone was listening or not. Considering what had really happened in the lobby, he had no plans on revealing what had actually transpired between himself and the intruders to anyone. From the way the detectives were urging him to “level with us and tell us what really happened,” Knight knew the pair had their doubts about his version of what had transpired.Still, knowing he had no real choice in the matter, the professor maintained his well-rehearsed stance as a sedentary curator and repeated his story again, once more giving the officers the same greatly reduced version of the actual events.
    “Fellows, I repeat, Ms. Elkins and I went back to the museum after dinner so I could handle a matter I had agreed would be taken care of earlier that day. When we arrived, I saw that no one was at the guard desk and grew suspicious. I sent Ms. Elkins to call you, while I went inside to investigate.” When Bridget spoke up, agreeing that such was what had happened, Dollins grunted at her that when they wanted to hear from the redhead they would direct their questions toward her.
    The young woman steamed, not taking kindly to being dismissed so brusquely. Having the good sense to realize that she had no cards to play in that situation, however, she accepted the detective’s rebuke and sat back in silence. At the same time, noting that the well-oiled pair knew their parts well, that while his partner had addressed Knight’s assistant, LaRaja’s eyes had never left him, the professor also held his tongue from letting slip any of the somewhat frosty comments he really wanted to say. Continuing on meekly, instead, he told the pair;
    “Anyway, as I was saying, when I did so, enter the museum, I mean, I discovered four men exiting from the lower levels carrying a burden. They began arguing in the lobby, and then drew their weapons and gunned each other down. Somehow this must have set off some sort of explosives they were carrying.” As the two