Page 187 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

sticker in her front window that reads, ‘Protected by Smith &
Wesson.’ I believe a Simulian would not need to see the humor in
that slogan to appreciate its serious intent.”
She nodded, patiently, meaning who-knows-what. I didn’t care,
and went blithely on from memory.
“It may have saved her life. Chris Kriturs was not home at all that
weekend: he was getting worried about his safety, given the previous
two murders, and had driven out to Lake Fishwood for a long
weekend at the lodge up there. No secret his place was deserted: he
didn’t leave a light on or tell any neighbors what he was doing, so the
mail and the throwaways were not taken in on Friday or Saturday. I
talked to the Fishwood desk clerks, and they told me Kriturs either
sat in the lobby reading the Racing Form, took his meals in the dining
room or holed up in his room. It’s about a six-hour drive, one way, in
case you wondered.”
“I didn’t, but thank you.” As a human reference library, she
undoubtedly had an atlas or two in the stacks. “Beryl Creighton, juror
number six, waited on tables as usual until the restaurant closed,
getting back to her apartment around eleven. You said she lived over
a garage: what kind of access, what kind of security?”
“It’s at the end of a driveway with a locked gate halfway down.
She has a key. A floodlight mounted on the edge of her landlord’s
roof is on all night, aimed at the pavement between the gate and the
garage door. The external stairs are also covered by that light. There
is a dog on the premises; it knows her, but barks loudly at strangers.
Her door is double-locked with deadbolts, the only entry without
scaling the walls to her windows—which she also keeps securely
locked. No problem sleeping, said she.”
“Not an insurmountable set of obstacles to a determined assassin,
but easier targets remained available,” said Labelle, stating nothing
but the obvious. “Grant Bloch evidently could no longer be counted
among them: after Rea Rainger’s death he had the fire escape ladder
removed from the side of his mother’s house and bought a rope
ladder in a box. It sits under his bedroom window. And there he was
on the night Bowan died. Was his mother awake during the hours in
which the murder occurred?”
“Impossible to say. She is totally unreliable, and he said she did not
wake him up.”

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