Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online Page A

any attention to the art when she died. She could have sat down to rest, period.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    When Macalvie appeared to be agreeing, Jury knew he wasn’t. “I expect the police closed the file on that one. The only reason I was in on it at all was because of a friend. A favor for a friend. Lady Cray. This Frances Hamilton had just lost her nephew. He was murdered in Philadelphia. Outside of Philadelphia.”
    â€œYou told me. That’s what you went over there for.”
    â€œFrances Hamilton had gone to the States to see if she could help the police. She’d been back a couple of months when this happened, I mean, when she died.”
    They stood there in silence and the pale light of late afternoon. The three policemen, ranged about the garderobe, looked, in their dark uniforms, like narrow black monoliths.
    â€œWhat part of the States?” asked Macalvie.
    The question seemed to have no underpinning. “What do you mean?”
    â€œYour—pardon me—” Macalvie clamped his hands to his chest—“I mean, A Division’s lady. You said she’d been to the States. What states, exactly? Only Pennsylvania?”
    â€œPennsylvania. Maryland.”
    â€œNowhere else?” Macalvie had stooped down to pick up a stone or a bit of flint. He was studying it.
    An image surfaced in Jury’s mind; he let it sink again. “Macalvie, I swear to God you’re building this case just like those masons who had to raise the lintels at Stonehenge.”
    â€œDid she go anywhere else?”
    Another mental nudge. Jury felt uncomfortable. In his mind’s eye he watched Lady Cray’s hand turn the block of turquoise with the silver band, the silver flautist. He’s called  . . . What? Jury tried to dredge up the name. Lady Cray had been holding it the way one does a talisman, an amulet, an artifact from which one draws strength.
    In like manner, Macalvie was turning his bit of flint. “You remembered something.” It was not a question.
    â€œNothing important.” He’s called Kokepelli.
    â€œSomething un important, then.”
    â€œStop trying to read my mind.”
    Macalvie smiled. “But you’re so transparent, Jury.”
    Jury walked off a few paces to stand and look down into the garderobe. The fall had broken her neck. The fall, surely, had killed her.
    â€œThe point is, Jury: what do you have to lose? Time, maybe; but we’re losing that anyway.”
    â€œI hate chasing will-o’-the-wisps.”
    Behind him, Macalvie laughed. “You do it all the time.”
    Jury couldn’t help but smile, then. “I still have no good reason to break into Rush’s investigation. Racer’d have me for breakfast. The commissioner would finish me off at dinner.”
    â€œBut you wouldn’t be breaking into his investigation. You’d just be trying to illuminate our investigation. Hell, let Rush do his own investigating. Save me the footwork. Anyway, you don’t give a flying fuck for Racer. Or the commissioner. Don’t try to kid me.”
    â€œ Our investigation?”
    â€œOf course, our . You said you wanted to transfer. So we can work this case together. You’d be on probation, naturally.”
    â€œI don’t think I want a transfer that badly.” Jury smiled. “I go much more for the obvious than you do. I’m Rush-ian, you might say.”
    â€œThe hell you are. But you’re damned grumpy. You must be hungry. I know I am. Come on, I know a pub that’s got good food a few miles away.”
    The black monolithic figures that were the Wiltshire policemen were melting away into the shadows down the bank and seemed to have forgotten the two other, alien policemen.
    â€œWhere’s the pub?”
    â€œSteeple Langford. Rainbow’s End.”
    Jury smiled. “So will it be there, or not?”
    â€œThe pub?”
    â€œThe pot of