Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    â€œWe’ll pass that. How old are you?”
    â€œThirty-six.”
    â€œHow old is your wife?”
    â€œForty-one.”
    â€œThe newspapers said thirty-five.”
    After a pause: “She’s forty-one.”
    â€œI see. Is it your first marriage?” The conversation was going fairly like a cablegram.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSuppose you tell me the matrimonial score and save time. Like Sergeant Friday, all I want are the facts, man.”
    â€œIs all this necessary?”
    â€œSuppose you let me be the judge.”
    â€œIt’s my second.”
    â€œHow did the first end?”
    â€œDivorce.”
    â€œDid you or she get it?”
    â€œShe.”
    â€œWhat grounds?”
    â€œCruelty, eating crackers in bed, that sort of thing.” He paused and
softly stroked his mustache. “The real grounds were she’d found an other man while I was in World War Two. I did not fight the case.”
    â€œI see. In the war did you serve in the European or Pacific theaters?”
    â€œBoth.”
    â€œAction in both?”
    â€œPlenty.”
    â€œDecorations?”
    â€œPlenty. Anybody who doesn’t cut and run gets those. They’re like K-rations.”
    â€œTalking about K, how about Korea?”
    â€œI was there.”
    â€œAction?”
    â€œPlenty. Got there just in time for the big bugout from the Yalu.”
    â€œWhat’s bugout? It sounds faintly lecherous to me.”
    â€œIt means retreat.”
    â€œWell, whadya know?” I said. “Any Korean decorations?”
    â€œPlenty.”
    Ah, I had a genuine military hero on my hands; one who was not only modest but traditionally reticent as hell, too. And wouldn’t he look nice in court all decked out in his ribbons and decorations? I could already see Old Glory fluttering over the jury. “What,” I went on, “what brought you ’way up in this forlorn neck of the woods?”
    â€œWell, after the Korean cease-fire I was sent back to the States. Since then I’ve been shifted around to various outfits as a special instructor. That’s why Laura and I got a trailer.”
    â€œWho’s Laura?”
    â€œMy wife.”
    â€œAnd you were a special instructor in what?”
    â€œAnti-aircraft artillery. It seems your big Lake Superior makes a nice safe place to lob shells into.”
    â€œTell me about your wife,” I said.
    Again the merest flutter of the eyes: “What do you want to know?”
    â€œOh, things like matrimonial statistics, including present status.”
    â€œI’m her second husband. She divorced the other one.”
    Old Glory sagged a little. “Hm … . Did you know your—ah —predecessor?”
    â€œVery well. We once served in the same outfit.”
    Old Glory sagged still farther. “You mean you and he were buddies?”
    There was the slightest pause. “ You might call it that.”
    I had received a musket ball through the heart and I saw I’d better brush up on the idiom of the modern fighting man. But to hell with it. “I see,” I said. “Now suppose you tell me where your ex-buddy was when you took up with his wife.” The ex-D.A. was beginning to enjoy turning the screws on Mister Cool, the anti-aircraft expert who scoffed at decorations.
    â€œGermany. Army of occupation.”
    â€œAnd where were you two?”
    â€œGeorgia.”
    Old Glory hung limp and dead on its staff. “It made a neat arrangement, didn’t it?” I said. He did not answer. “Did either of you have any children from your previous marriages?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOr from this one?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAny prospects?”
    Mister Cool fell silent.
    â€œAny prospects?” I repeated.
    Savagely: “Not unless that dirty bastard Quill knocked her up!”
    Here was a sudden revealing step upon dangerous ground, very dangerous ground. In a touchy case