Family Honor - Robert B Parker Read Free Page A

interesting happening here.
I wasn't sure what it was, but I didn't want to miss it.
    "I don't mind," I said.
    He took an umbrella from a stand beside the French doors
behind his desk. He opened the doors and we went out into the rain. He
held the umbrella so that I had to put my arm through his to stay under
cover. We walked across the soft wet grass, my heels sinking in uncomfortably.
Maybe there should be a new rule about wearing heels when I was working.
Maybe the new rule would be, never. On the far side of the croquet lawn,
and shielded from it by a grove of trees, was an open shed with a sort
of counter across one side and a wood-shingled roof. We went to the shed
and under the roof. Patton closed the umbrella. He took a key from
his pocket and opened a cabinet under the counter and took out something
that looked like a small clay frisbee.
    "What have you for a weapon," Patton said.
    I took out my 38 Special.
    "Well, very quick," he said. "Think you could hit anything
with that?"
    There was a test going on, and I didn't know quite what
was being tested.
    "Probably," I said.
    He smiled down at me.
    "I doubt that you can hit much with that thing," he said.
    "What is your plan?" I said.
    "I'll toss this in the air, and you put a bullet through
it."
    If I did that using a handgun with a two-inch barrel it
would be by accident. He knew it.
    "I'll toss it up here," he said, "it's safe to fire toward
the river." He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded. He smiled
as if to himself and stepped out of the shed and tossed the disk maybe
thirty feet straight up into the air. I didn't move. The disk hit its zenith
and came down and landed softly on the wet grass about eight feet beyond
the shed. And lay on its side. I walked out of the shed, and over to the
disk, and standing directly above it, I put a bullet through the middle
of it from a distance of about eighteen inches. The disk shattered. Patton
stared at me.
    "I don't need to be able to shoot something falling through
the air thirty feet away," I said. "This gun is quite effective at this
range, Brock, which is about the only range I'll ever need it for."
    I put the gun away. Patton nodded and stared at the disk
fragments for a moment or two; then he picked up the umbrella and opened
it and handed it to me.
    "Come back in," he said. "I'd like you to meet my wife."
    Then he walked away bareheaded in the nice rain. I followed
him, alone under the umbrella.
 

    CHAPTER 2
Betty Patton was far too perfect. She annoyed me on sight
in the same way Martha Stewart does. Her hair was too smooth. Her makeup
was too subtle. Her legs were too shapely. Her pale yellow linen dress
fit her much too well. She sat with one perfect leg crossed over the other
in a low armchair in the study sipping coffee. The cup and saucer were
bone-colored. There was a slim gold band around the rim of the cup. When
Brock introduced us, she smiled without rising and offered her hand gracefully.
Her handshake was firm but feminine. She said she was pleased to meet me.
She called me Ms. Randall. I don't know how she did it, but any neutral
observer would have known at once that Betty was the employer, and I was
the employee.
    "You've been shooting," Betty said. "Yes."
    "Can she shoot, Brock?"
    "Well, sort of," Brock said.
    "Did you ask Brock to shoot, Ms. Randall?"
    "No," I said. "I didn't."
    "Oh, well, you've disappointed him badly then. That was
the real point of the exercise."
    I had nothing to say about that, and I said it. The decorative
fire was still burning vigorously. A servant must have fed it while we
were out. The air-conditioning was still fogging the glass in the French
doors.
    "I think Ms. Randall is who we need," Brock said.
    Betty smiled and sipped her coffee. She didn't spill a
drop on her dress. She wouldn't.
    "I rather expected you to think so," Betty said when the
elegant cup was perfectly centered back in the elegant saucer. "She's quite
pretty."
    "She has a good background,"