State’s Evidence

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State’s Evidence Page 31

by Stephen Greenleaf


  “Marsh.”

  “Hey, Arnie.”

  “It’s great to see you.”

  “You, too.”

  “Heard you were in town, Marsh. Ann and I sure would like you to come to dinner while you’re here.”

  “I will if I can, Arnie. Say hi to Ann for me, anyway.”

  Arnie nodded his balding head. He had to be over sixty-five but he looked a decade younger. His wife had been his student, and their courtship and marriage had been scandalous to many, as those things tend to be, but my knowledge of it was all hearsay. All I knew for sure was that they were both good people who’d taken a genuine interest in me when I was too young to be much of anything but irritating.

  “How long you staying?” Arnie asked as I pocketed my change.

  “I’m not sure. Probably only a day or two. How’s Craig?” I asked, naming their son, a star miler in his time, which had been about five years after mine. Craig was a doctor in Texas, last I heard. The thought made me smile. Everything I knew about Chaldea’s present was what I had learned through Gail. If she didn’t deem it important enough to tell over the longdistance wire, it didn’t exist.

  “Craig died two years ago, Marsh,” Arnie said, jolting my thoughts. “Car wreck. Down in Dallas.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. We’re over it now. Took a while, I admit. Hard to understand a thing like that. Just like what happened to you folks.”

  He stopped, stabbed by the pointed blade of memory, and his gaunt face grew even longer, assuming an aspect that on another face would have been a caricature of grief. “Left a wife and three kids,” he went on. “We never see them. She thinks we’re too backward up here in the sticks. Big society woman. Married Craig’s partner six weeks after he died. Thank God Ann has her church.”

  Arnie’s eyes returned from the gruesome burden of the past. He rubbed them back to life and coughed while I searched for something to say. “Come see us, Marsh,” he said, before I thought of anything.

  Arnie slapped my shoulder again and walked away. I took some quarters back to my table and left them for the waitress. When she saw me she hurried up and asked if anything was wrong with the buckwheats. Her breasts bounced furiously within their sheaths. I told her I’d been too busy to eat, then hurried out into the street without meeting any of the eyes that sought out mine.

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  About the Author

  Stephen Greenleaf (b. 1942), a former lawyer and an alumnus of the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop, is a mystery and thriller writer best known for his series of novels starring PI John Marshall Tanner. Recognized for being both literate and highly entertaining, Greenleaf’s novels often deal with contemporary social and political issues.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1982 by Stephen Greenleaf

  Cover design by Drew Padrutt

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2100-5

  This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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