Free Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City by Mike Reuther

good doctor’s patience had grown thin. “As I stated previously,” he said with a sigh. “All evidence indicates that the knife was plunged into the back of the victim with a single thrust. An autopsy, I’m quite sure, will bear this out.” He looked from McNish to me. “Will that be all gentlemen ?”
    “Just one thing doc,” I said.
    “Yes.”
    “Who writes your punch lines?”
    “I beg your…”
    “Your delivery. It could use some work too.”
    I left him standing there with his mouth open.
    It was only natural to next track down Giles Hampton, but up to this point I’d been unable to find either the professor or his female companion, Jeannette. I’d made several calls over the past couple days to the guy’s place, but all I’d been able to get was an answering machine. And at Ocyl College, where he taught, his secretary informed me Hampton rarely checked into his office over the summer. I called a cab and had the driver take me by Hampton’s digs. Even if he wasn’t home I wanted to check out his residence.
    A fine mist began to fall as the cabbie dropped me off before a stone house at the very end of a dark street. There was nothing really remarkable about the place sitting as did in this slightly upscale neighborhood. However, it was set apart by the other tidy, comfortable two-story dwellings by its unkempt and forbidden appearance. Trees, shrubs and other untamed growth strangled the place. It looked to be the home of a recluse. A cracked, flagstone walk led to the front door - a massive oak job with a great big lion’s head knocker that probably went fifty pounds. It was dark inside, so figuring no one was home I jimmied the door open with a pocket knife I carried and let myself in. I got out a flashlight to get my bearings.
    I found myself standing in a short hallway leading off on either side to rooms. The room off to the left was the larger of the two. There, my light caught a stone fireplace with an oval rug spread out before it. Some logs were piled at the base of the hearth and some pokers on either side of the fireplace. It was when I worked the light to both sides of the fireplace that I saw what dominated the room: stacks of books from the floor to the ceiling ran across the entire length of one wall. It was one hell of a library. But that wasn’t all. Volumes were everywhere: spilling off smaller bookcases in other parts of the room, a few strewn here and there about the floor and also piled in haphazard heaps upon a loveseat in a corner of the room. Still more books could be found on the mantle and on a coffee table before a couch.
    Making my way to the couch, I couldn’t help but kick a few of the books along the way. I was making no real attempt to be quiet. I was sure there was no one home. Just to keep from alerting a nosey neighbor though, I conducted my business with the flashlight.
    Hampton was deep into the serious literature. That was for damn sure. On the coffee table were copies of Ulysses, War and Peace, The Stranger, Crime and Punishment and The Trial . And those were just the titles I recognized. But I wasn’t here to lose myself in the world’s great books. I moved the beam of the flashlight over the books. On the table amidst this vast collection of literature was a stack of letters. I turned the stack over. All of them sealed and stamped, the envelopes were addressed to various schools: Amherst College in Massachusetts, Bates College in Maine and other colleges I recognized from the New England region. Either Hampton was pushing for another job at a more prestigious school or he was keeping up a steady stream of communication with some former colleagues. Then I hit pay dirt. On the edge of the table was a book with an envelope protruding from its pages. It was addressed to Lance Miller. I stuffed it into my coat pocket. The contents of it, I was sure, would later prove to contain more than a little interesting reading. I made special note of the book , A Critical