Free Killing Cassidy by Jeanne M. Dams Page A

about me. He doesn’t like the police much, and the feeling’s mutual. One of these days he’s going to go too far with that squirrel rifle of his and kill somebody. He’s a menace.”
    I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help protesting. “Oh, Darryl, he’s harmless enough, surely? A little eccentric, not terribly bright, but—”
    â€œEccentric! He’s crazy as a coot! He tell you about Vietnam?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œHe tell you he was in the psych ward for a couple of years after he got back?”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œNo, I didn’t think so. Look, I feel kind of sorry for the guy, myself, but he’s more’n a few plays short of a football game. The gooks really messed up his head when he was a POW, see. He tried to kill a guard when he was in the loony bin, and he can’t be trusted. He just goes haywire sometimes, and he’s way too good a shot to be safe. I’ve seen him shoot a running mouse from twenty, thirty feet away. I wouldn’t go out there anymore if I were you, Mrs. Martin.”
    I opened my mouth to ask another question about Kevin, but the radio on Darryl’s shoulder went into action. I couldn’t hear what the crackling voice said, but Darryl got up in a hurry. “Sorry, Mrs. Martin, but I gotta go. Nice to see you again.” Without so much as a nod to Alan he sped out the door, leaving us to find our own way out of the station.
    We drove back to the hotel in silence, but when we got to the room I had to deal with it.
    â€œAlan, I’m so sorry. I should have realized—”
    â€œNever mind, love. It’s only natural that your old friends should resent me. It’s all right.”
    â€œBut Darryl isn’t an old friend. He’s just a child I taught. And still acting pretty childish, if you ask me.”
    â€œHe was afraid I was going to lord it over him, as the senior officer in an English police force. It was his inferiority complex at work. I’m afraid we’ve developed a worldwide reputation as snobs about our policing methods. And quite justified, too.”
    â€œYour reputation, or your snobbery?”
    â€œBoth, actually.”
    I giggled at that, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “I don’t know what you must think of the hick town I lived in all my life.”
    â€œNow who’s developing an inferiority complex? Come on, let’s sit down and work out what we’ve got, if anything.”
    I dug the notebook out from under the stack of sweatshirts, but there was discouragingly little to put in it. Under the heading “Who was present?” I added the names Jerry had given us, or the descriptions where we didn’t know names. And we were able to add a little information to the “Interviews” section.
    â€œOkay. Police chief. Doesn’t like you.”
    â€œIrrelevant,” Alan objected.
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not. It stays. Called on Kevin shortly before he died.”
    â€œBorrowed money from him,” Alan contributed.
    â€œAre you still harping on that money? I don’t see how it could have anything to do with anything.”
    â€œIf his attitude toward me stays in, the money stays in.”
    I sighed and made the note. “And he took one course from Kevin. Relevant?”
    â€œProbably not, but write it down. At this stage we have no idea what is important and what isn’t.”
    â€œI suspect nobody; I suspect everybody,” I chanted in an Inspector Clouseau voice.
    â€œExactly. On to Mrs. Schneider.”
    There wasn’t much to say about her, either. A pharmacist by profession, a former student of Kevin’s, a fanatic about keeping development out of Hillsburg.
    â€œI wonder,” asked Alan, “how much money the professor gave her for this project of hers.”
    â€œShe didn’t say.”
    â€œNo. But she must need quite a lot. Attorneys who can take