The Eye: A Novel of Suspense by Bill Pronzini, John Lutz Read Free Book Online

finding out who shot Martin Simmons. What time did he leave?”
    “Around three. He wanted to stay the night, but I told him no.”
    “Why? For any particular reason?”
    “I like to sleep alone.”
    “What was his reaction when you asked him to leave?”
    “He had no reaction. He just said he’d call me, I gave him ray number, and he left.”
    “Wasn’t he worried about being out on the street at that late hour?”
    “He didn’t seem to be.”
    “Miss Crane,” Oxman said, “doesn’t it bother you that you were the last person other than his killer to see Martin Simmons alive? Doesn’t it bother you that a man you were intimate with has been murdered?”
    “Of course it bothers me.”
    “You don’t seem bothered.”
    “Would you prefer it if I’d sat here all day crying? I hardly knew the man.”
    “You went to bed with him.”
    “Are you sitting in judgment of me, Detective Oxman?”
    “No,” he said.
    “It sounds as if you are.”
    “I told you, Miss Crane, I’m just trying to do my job.”
    She gave him a long speculative look. For some reason that she couldn’t quite grasp, he interested her in a detached sort of way. Of all the men she had known intimately, none of them had been a police officer; maybe that was it. “Oxman,” she said. “The name suggests a plodder. But I suspect you’re something more than that.”
    “Plodding is part of every policeman’s job,” he told her. “I’m a cog in the mills of justice that grind exceedingly fine.”
    “The mills of the gods do that,” she corrected.
    “Sometimes there isn’t any difference.”
    She shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
    He looked at her legs again, caught himself, and shifted his gaze to his notebook. “Do you own a firearm, Miss Crane?”
    “Why do you ask that? Am I a suspect?”
    “Everyone who had any contact with Martin Simmons, and the opportunity to kill him, is a suspect.”
    “I see. No, I don’t own a firearm. I don’t like guns.”
    “Neither do I—in the wrong hands. Did you know either of the other two victims? Charles Unger and Peter Cheng?”
    “No.”
    “Not even to speak to on the street?”
    “No.”
    “All right. Is there anything else you can tell me that might be of help?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    Oxman let out a breath, closed his notebook, and stood up.
    “Is that all, then?” Jennifer asked.
    “For now, yes. We’ll want you to make a statement at the precinct house.”
    “When? Tonight?”
    “Tomorrow will do. Give some thought to the time you spent with Martin Simmons; maybe you can remember something you can’t think of right now. Make notes if that will help jog your memory.”
    Jennifer nodded, then stood to show him out. He was looking at the nearest of the framed examples of her work, a romantic illustration of a man and a woman embracing on a cliff overlooking an angry sea, another of a young girl sitting at a bay window and gazing out beyond a flower box exploding with geraniums. She knew both illustrations were slickly commercial, but she also knew both displayed a sure cleanness of line and an undeniable sensitivity.
    “Good,” he said, nodding at the illustrations.
    “Schmaltzy,” Jennifer replied. An honest self-appraisal.
    “Good nevertheless. There’s nothing wrong in using your talent to make a living.”
    “True enough.” She smoothed her dress over her thighs, watching him as she did so. He noticed the gesture; there wasn’t much that he wouldn’t notice, she thought. About a woman he found attractive, or about anything else.
    At the door she asked, “How about tomorrow night after work?”
    The question seemed to startle him. “What?”
    “For my statement,” she said. “Or I can make it during the day, if that would be better.”
    “Any time that’s convenient,” he said.
    Jennifer opened the chain lock, then the door. “What’s your first name?” she asked then. “Or were you Detective Oxman even as a child?”
    His mouth quirked wryly.