Free Killing Cassidy by Jeanne M. Dams

into trouble off campus. Which they usually don’t. And if it’s drugs you’re thinking of, we don’t have too much problem with that here, not yet, no matter what you’ve heard about Americans.”
    Worse and worse. I stepped in. “Darryl—oh, dear, I suppose I should call you Chief Lacey, but—”
    â€œYou call me anything you want, Mrs. Martin.” There was just the faintest emphasis on the
you
. He had turned away from Alan and addressed only me.
    â€œDarryl, then, since I knew you when you were a pup. We really don’t want to take up your time, but I wondered what you could tell me about the last few weeks of Kevin Cassidy’s life. I understand you were a friend of his. I was so sorry to hear of his death.” I repeated my story of concern and guilt feelings, a story that, however true, was beginning to sound very thin to me. I hoped Darryl found it more convincing.
    â€œYeah, he was a great old guy—a real character. He even gave me some money once. You know about those ‘loans’ of his?”
    â€œYes, Frank and I borrowed some once, ourselves. He was a generous man, Kevin.”
    â€œI guess there’s not hardly anybody in town didn’t borrow a little from the prof at one time or another. I was taking a course from him, back when I was a freshman, and I wanted to buy a car so bad I could taste it. He advanced me the money. Gave me a lecture along with it, about being careful, not drinking and driving, all that. I don’t s’pose I’d have listened to it coming from anybody else, but he had a way of sounding like God, you know?”
    â€œI do indeed. I didn’t know you went to the university, Darryl.”
    â€œDropped out after a couple of years and went into the police. I’ve never been sorry. College wasn’t for me, but I enjoyed some of it. ’Specially the prof’s course. I don’t know what a world-famous guy like him was doing teaching freshman biology, but he sure made it interesting.”
    â€œHe insisted on teaching that course now and then. Used to say he liked to keep in touch with the real world, the people who didn’t think biology was the be-all and end-all of life. So did you see much of him the last few years?”
    â€œNot a lot. I used to drop in once in a while. Kind of worried about him living out there all by himself, you know? He wasn’t getting any younger. And I went out once, just before he got sick, to see if he could make me one of those glass things he’d started doing. Present for my wife. You know about the glass stuff?”
    â€œI’ve seen a few examples of his work. He was a real artist.”
    â€œYeah, who’d have thought a guy could take up something new, at his age, and be so good at it?”
    â€œHe was a remarkable man. How did he seem when you saw him?”
    â€œFine. We had a cold spell in August, and I went out mostly to make sure he was keeping warm enough, but it was almost hot out there in that workshop of his, what with the soldering iron and all, and he was working away, happy as a clam. Didn’t seem sick at all. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard he had pneumonia.”
    â€œA soldering iron?”
    â€œYou put the glass together with solder. I don’t know how it works, exactly, but there was a big reel of the stuff on his workbench. Along with copper foil and lots of different colors of glass—gosh, it was pretty. I feel real bad he never got a chance to finish mine. And who told you I was a friend of his?”
    The question came so suddenly I had no answer ready. “Umm—one of the neighbors, I think—”
    â€œHe didn’t have any close neighbors, nobody to see who was coming and going. Except that crazy guy in the woods. It was him, wasn’t it?”
    â€œReally, I—”
    â€œNever mind. I suppose you don’t want me to know what he said