The Memorial Hall Murder Read Free

conversation. “But, my God, man, that will take a year.”
    McCurdy and Campbell and Harvey looked up in surprise at the tall man with the bushy head of hair. “Look,” said John Campbell, “I already told you, the building is closed to unauthorized personnel. Nobody from outside is supposed to be in here.”
    But instead of explaining himself, the big man in the mismatched coat and pants was rumbling on in a kind of excited babble. “You can’t search every nook and cranny in this place in less than a year. The building is as convoluted as the human brain. There are a hundred rooms in the basement alone. I know that for a fact. Why, you can’t even get from one floor of the building to the other. It’s different universes. Whole different geometrical nonconnected dimensions. It’s like trying to take off your vest without removing your coat. And the tower. Just think of the tower. And the big spaces between the wooden vaults and the roof. My God, man, just think. Say, listen—oh, please, Chief, could I come along when you go up there? I mean, I’m really crazy about towers. If there’s one thing in this life I’m really crazy about, it’s crawling around on the tops of vaults.”
    They were looking at him vacantly.
    The man smiled at John Campbell. “I’m sorry. I should explain myself. Visiting professor. My wife and I, we’ve got this one-year appointment. I was teaching in the lecture hall over down yonder when the thing went off. It was my first day of teaching, you see, because Mary had the class the first few weeks. What I’m trying to tell you is that before I was a student of American literature and all that sort of thing, I was an assistant to the District Attorney over there in East Cambridge. I was a lieutenant detective in Middlesex County before I retired to a bookish and sedentary life in Concord. My name’s Kelly. How do you do.”
    â€œKelly? You’re not Homer Kelly?” John Campbell stared. “Well, no kidding. So you’re Homer Kelly. Well, sure, I guess you can come along. But we won’t search the rest of the building until we’ve got all this debris cleared out, and make sure nobody else is buried down there. So if you’d just step outside for now, Mr. Kelly, and stand across the street, I’ll send for you when we get around to looking at the tower.”
    Homer Kelly beamed and shook everybody’s hand. He stepped over the broken door in the north entry and started down the steps outside.
    A hearse was turning into the circular driveway from Kirkland Street. The driver pulled quickly to a stop and leaned out and shouted at Homer.
    â€œWhat did you say?” said Homer, bending down politely to the car window.
    â€œI said, is there anything left of the guy? My name’s Ratchit. North Cambridge Funeral Parlor. I mean, sometimes, when you get a bomb, there’s nothing left but pieces all over. You’ve got to mop them up in a bucket.”
    â€œOh, well,” said Homer mournfully. “It was pretty bad.” He shook his head and stood back as Ratchit bounced out of the hearse and ran around the front of the car.
    John Campbell was there to meet him. “Hello, Ratchit,” he said. “You’re early. They’re not through taking pictures yet. You want to come back this afternoon?”
    â€œNo, it’s all right. I’ll wait.” Ratchit had a small sharp face. He bounded ahead of John Campbell up the stairs, snapping under his feet glass fragments bearing the names of the virtues, fallen from the rose window high above: Fortitudo, Disciplina, Prudentia, Patientia.

Chapter Five

    He was back in New Jersey. Although he didn’t know how he knew it was New Jersey, because all the lights were out. But it must be New Jersey, because his great-aunts were lined up in a row beside him, singing. Oh, they were terrible. Oh, why didn’t they