Labyrinth (The Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page B

the smell of spilled whiskey. Aside from that, the condition of each of the rooms seemed ordinary enough.
    The distant wail of sirens, when they finally came, was a relief. I went out on the porch to wait and breathe more of the fresh air. The sirens grew louder and closer, and pretty soon a pair of Brisbane police cars came speeding along Queen’s Lane, swung up the drive, and plowed to a halt. Three uniformed cops piled out, one of them wearing sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve of his jacket. The sergeant’s name was Osterman, it turned out, and he was in charge.
    I showed him the photostat of my investigator’s license, told him about Talbot being inside, answered preliminary questions, and handed over the gun. Osterman told me to wait there; then, before I could explain why I knew Talbot had not shot Victor Carding, he and one of the other cops headed for the garage. The third cop went inside the house to talk to Talbot.
    There was a kind of deja vu in the next thirty minutes; I had been through it all too often before—the last time just two days ago, at the scene of Christine Webster’s murder. More Brisbane police units had arrived and were controlling the inevitable bunch of ghouls that had gathered down on the road. A dark brown Cadillac with MD plates showed up: the doctor I had asked them to send when I called. Then a county ambulance, probably from South San Francisco. Then another car with MD plates, this one containing a harried-looking guy who I assumed was acting coroner for this bailiwick. Then a TV-remote truck that was not permitted up the drive because there was no room; the area in front of the house looked like a parking lot as it was. And while all of this was going on, Osterman went into the house, came back out after ten minutes looking even grimmer than before, and returned to the garage. Neither he nor anyone else said a word to me.
    Finally, while I paced back and forth waiting for Osterman to get around to me again, a light-green Ford sedan joined the string of other cars down on Queen’s Lane. A fat man in a rumpled suit got out of it, spoke to one of the cops down there, and was allowed to proceed up the drive on foot. The way he moved, in a waddling gait like a latter-day Oliver Hardy, made me stop pacing and stand looking at him as he approached.
    Well, what do you know, I thought. Donleavy.
    He recognized me at about the same time, raised an eyebrow and then one hand in greeting. I went forward to meet him.
    “How are you, Donleavy?”
    “Not too bad,” he said. We shook hands. “Been what—seven, eight years?”
    “About that.” I had met him, way back then, during the course of an ugly kidnapping and murder case in Hillsborough—the one on which I had got the knife wound in the belly.
    He said, “So what’re you doing here? Mixed up with murder again, are you?”
    “I’m afraid so. How about you? Aren’t you still with the DA’s office?”
    “Nope. County CID the past four years. Brisbane police don’t have the facilities to handle a homicide investigation, so they ask us to come in whenever they get one. I was over in San Bruno on a routine matter; that’s why I got sent. Lucky me.”
    “Lucky you.”
    “Where’s the body?”
    “In the garage. The coroner’s with it now.”
    “Any suspects?”
    “Yes and no,” I said. “There’s a man inside the house named Martin Talbot; I found him with the dead man. He had what was probably the death weapon in his hand—a .38 caliber revolver—and he confessed to me that he’d done the shooting. But he didn’t do it. I doubt if anybody did; I think it might be suicide.”
    Donleavy studied me. He looked older, grayer, maybe a little fatter, and his eyes seemed even more sleepy than I remembered them. The impression he gave was one of softness and mildness—but that was an illusion. He was shrewd and dedicated, and he could be pretty tough when he had to be.
    “You know this Talbot, do you?” he asked.
    “I know