The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,20
I’m not very good at talking to people. Sometimes I think there’s too much silence when I’m working on a patient. They can’t talk, obviously, and I just can’t manage to open my mouth.”
“Believe me, it’s a release after Craig does his Motormouth number.”
She giggled. It was a charming giggle, which surprised me about as much as that the sun had picked the east to rise in that morning. “He does talk a lot,” she acknowledged, as if painfully admitting that the Liberty Bell had a crack in it. “But that’s only with patients. When he’s alone he’s very shy and quiet.”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect him to talk to himself.”
“Pardon me?”
“Everybody’s quiet when they’re alone.”
She thought about it, then blushed prettily. I’d come to think of that as a lost art. “I meant he’s quiet when he’s alone with me.”
“I knew what you meant.”
“Oh.”
“I was being a smart-ass. Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I just—my mind’s not working too brilliantly this morning. I wonder what I should do. Do you think I can go see Craig?”
“I don’t know whether or not he can have visitors. You could go down there and find out, but I think it would be a good idea for us to learn a little more about what’s going on first. If we had a better idea of just how good a case they’ve got against Craig, we might be in a better position to figure out what to do next.”
“Do you think they’ve got a good case?”
I shrugged. “Hard to say. It would help if he has an alibi for last night, but I guess if he had a good one he’d be back on the street by now. I, uh, gather he wasn’t with you?”
She blushed again. I guess there was no avoiding it. “No,” she said. “We had dinner together last night but then we each had some things to do so we went our separate ways. I guess it was about nine o’clock that I saw him last. I went home and so did he.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh!” She brightened. “I talked to him before I went to bed. It was during the Carson show, I remember that. It wasn’t much of a conversation, we just said goodnight to each other, but he was home then. Would that help give him an alibi?”
“Did you call him?”
“He called me.”
“Then it wouldn’t help his alibi a whole lot. You’ve only got his word as to where he was when he called you. And the police are likely to take the position that a murderer wouldn’t draw the line at lying to a pretty lady.”
She started to say something, then gnawed a little scarlet lipstick from her lower lip. It was a becoming shade and a most attractive lower lip. I wouldn’t have minded gnawing it myself.
“Bernie? You don’t think he did it, do you?”
“I’m pretty certain he didn’t.”
“Why?”
I had a reason but I preferred to keep it to myself. “Because of the kind of guy he is,” I said instead, and that was evidently just what she wanted to hear. She started enlarging on the topic of Craig Sheldrake, World’s Greatest Guy, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t make him sound like someone I’d have really liked to meet.
I decided to change the subject. “The fact that we know he’s innocent doesn’t do him much good,” I said, by way of transition. “The cops have to know he’s innocent, and the easiest way for that to happen is if they’ve got someone else they know is guilty. Unless you’re on the Orient Express, one murderer per corpse is all anybody could possibly ask for.”
“Do you mean we should try to solve the crime ourselves?”
Did I? “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, backpedaling. “But I wish I knew more than I do. I’d like to know just when the murder was committed, and I’d like to know what men Crystal was involved with lately, and where all of them were when somebody was busy killing her. And I’d like to know if anybody had a particularly strong reason for wanting her dead. Craig had a ton of reasons, and you and I know that and so does the long arm of the law, but a woman who led as active a life as Crystal Sheldrake did must have made a few enemies along the way. Maybe some lover of hers had a jealous wife or girlfriend. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there and I hardly