The Whole Megillah Read Online Free

was able to find the door.
    Albany Avenue was only two blocks from Brunswick. I walked up to Barton and through the somewhat muddled street arrangements south of a big church in the block between Howland and Albany. It was the only place I knew where cars routinely ignored a one-way sign in order to continue along Barton. On foot, of course, it made no difference.
    It was no great test of detective skills to find out which house had become ‘the scene of the crime.’ Two police cars were parked on the wrong side of the street and a small group of sightseers was loitering near them, watching for the slightest movement of a curtain or the shift of a blind. A man with a camera around his neck was talking to a policeman on the front steps. I went up and introduced myself to the man in uniform. Five minutes later, I was sitting in Moore’s living room, exactly where I’d been sitting last Tuesday when the deceased offered me a drink. This time I was offered nothing more than a portion of couch and the opportunity to twiddle my thumbs waiting for Detective Sergeant Chuck Pepper of the Homicide Squad. I told him quickly about my meeting with Moore and in broad outline the work he had asked me to do for him. He gave no indication of whether any of this was news to him. You get to expect that from the professionals. Information is the coin of the realm and nobody gives change. In the end he thanked me for coming forward and relaxed enough to light a cigarette.
    Automatically, I reached into my own pocket. It was a reflex. I’d stopped smoking, but I still had the habit. I brought out a Hall’s cough candy and sucked on that. It wasn’t as good as a smoke, but it was what I was doing these days. Like a member of AA, I never said I wouldn’t start smoking again; I just tried to keep myself away from tobacco one day at a time.
    Pepper seemed to find his cigarette very satisfying. I let him know he was enjoying it for both of us. That was a good move. He began to loosen up and talk to me instead of asking questions from behind a barricade.
    â€˜The paper said that the murder weapon was a rifle from his collection?’ I tried to make it sound like a question, just to see what kind of answer it was likely to get.
    â€˜The Globe just hinted that. We are keeping mum about the cause of death right now. We sent the broken stock of the gun to see what Forensics could tell us. You can see where he kept his guns.’ I followed Pepper’s pointed finger to a wall where a group of expensive-looking, hand-made guns hung in a row. The pegs where one gun was missing made its own mute comment.
    I couldn’t understand collectors. How could they go from guns to rare books? How could the mind that enjoyed illuminated initial letters also admire tools for casting musketballs or tin soldiers?
    â€˜Are you saying that the gun wasn’t fired?’ I asked Pepper.
    â€˜That, my friend, is the main thing we are not saying, if you follow me. I reckon we might catch a monkey that way as well as another.’
    â€˜Were any more of his rare books taken?’ I asked.
    â€˜We’ve got somebody checking into that,’ Pepper said, putting his notebook down on the arm of his chair. His close-cropped, steel-grey hair made him look like an American career officer, but there was a slight English turn to his speech. It wasn’t exactly an accent; it was his way of putting words together that gave him away.
    â€˜Any objections to my seeing where it happened?’
    â€˜As long as it’s for your own prurient satisfaction, Mr. Cooperman. I don’t want to think of you as the competition. As long as you have that straight.’
    â€˜I told Moore that you were the only show in town when I saw him last Tuesday. I told him he shouldn’t be hiring a rent-a-cop like me when you were on the job.’
    â€˜Sure, but we needed him to die before we could go to work.’
    â€˜I mean your