Hire a Hangman Read Free Page A

maybe.”
    “Did he fall in his tracks?” Hastings asked.
    “That’s my impression, Lieutenant.”
    “Do both witnesses’ stories agree?”
    “Pretty much, yeah.”
    “How do you rate the witnesses?”
    Miller shrugged. “Compared to what?” He hesitated. Then, explaining: “This is only the second homicide I’ve ever caught.”
    “Okay—so what’d the assailant do?”
    “Apparently he went to the body and stood over it for a few seconds, looking down. Then he walked down to Hyde Street”—Miller gestured downhill—“and turned left on Hyde.”
    “Walked?”
    Emphatically, Miller nodded. “Walked. Definitely walked. He didn’t run.”
    “Did either Taylor or Sheppard try to follow the guy?”
    Miller shook his head. “Taylor went to the victim, to see if he could help, like I said. And Sheppard, who’d parked by that time, he stayed in his car. Which was smart, of course.”
    “It would’ve been nice,” Hastings said ruefully, “if he’d followed the guy in his car.”
    “Yeah. Well …” Miller shrugged again. “What can you do? At least he’s willing to talk to us. There’s that.”
    “Yes,” Hastings agreed, his voice resigned. “Yes, there’s that.”
    11:27 PM
    Because the shop windows and the cars parked at curbside and the garbage pails set on the sidewalk moved and changed and appeared and disappeared, she realized she was walking. But there was no sensation, no contact, no conscious movement. Even if the sky tilted and the earth shifted, there would be no sensation. Only the night had meaning, only darkness had substance. From darkness come to darkness returned. Was it a poem? Was it the truth?
    Could she remember?
    Yes, always she would remember.
    The eyes, dead, rolled up in their sockets. The bloodstain, blossoming as she’d watched. Always, she would remember. Always.
    So that now, finally, she could rest.
    Finally it was finished. Finally the pain had been numbed. As darkness had returned to darkness, so death would return to death.
    11:32 PM
    The door swung open to reveal a tall, slim, balding man dressed in faded blue jeans, scuffed white running shoes, and a sweatshirt imprinted with a Porsche logo.
    “Mr. Taylor?”
    “Right.” Taylor nodded—a small, semi-spastic inclination of his narrow head. Taylor was probably still in his thirties. His face was delicately drawn, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, an invalid’s face. His small mouth was permanently pursed, a worrier’s mouth. His round hazel eyes, blinking, were vulnerable as they fixed on the gold badge pinned to the breast of Hastings’s jacket.
    His voice, too, was vulnerable: “Have you—is—” Shaking his head, he broke off. Then he stepped back, gesturing for Hastings to come inside.
    Like the Russian Hill neighborhood, Bruce Taylor’s flat was elegant: antiques that were obviously authentic, paintings that were obviously originals. Abruptly showing Hastings to a damask settee, Taylor sat facing him across a small wooden table. A heavy cut-glass tumbler, half-filled, stood on the table. For a moment Taylor sat rigidly, staring down at the tumbler. Then: “I’m—I’m having a drink. Would you—” With an obvious effort, he raised his eyes. “Would you like one—a drink?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “Ah …” As if he’d received a rebuke, Taylor first nodded, then sharply shook his head, suggesting that he couldn’t control his own impatience with himself. “I—I’m sorry. But the truth is …” Shakily he gestured to the window that overlooked Green Street. He frowned, licked his lips, then looked directly into Hastings’s eyes as he said, “The truth is, this thing—it’s gotten to me. I mean, I’m thirty-seven, and I’ve never seen a body. Not—not even in a funeral home. I …” Shaking his head again, this time helplessly, forlornly, Taylor reached for the tumbler, drank half of the dark amber fluid, and replaced the tumbler on the table. “I mean, Jesus, you see someone like