Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [116]
Dave lowered himself into an armchair. “May I ask what this is about? Has something happened?”
Her eyes locked on him. “Dr. Dryden,” she said, “Dr. Shelborne was murdered.”
Dave’s first reaction was to laugh. But she was dead serious. “You can’t believe that,” he said.
“I never joke, Doctor. Someone attacked the victim in bed, battered him seriously enough to fracture his skull and break both arms. Then he set fire to the house.”
Behind Dave, the floor creaked. Howard was still moving around. “That can’t be right,” he said. “It was a lightning bolt, wasn’t it?”
“There was a lot of lightning, and we can’t tell whether the place actually got hit. But it’s irrelevant. Somebody dumped gasoline on the ground floor and set it ablaze.”
“Gasoline? I just don’t believe it.”
Her eyes never left him. “Who’d want him dead?”
“Nobody had any reason to kill Shel. He had no enemies. At least, none that I know of. It would probably have been a burglar, wouldn’t it? A break-in?”
“Burglars don’t usually attack occupants in bed. Or burn the house down.” She pressed her index finger against her lips. “The killer broke into his desk, as well. Pried open one of the drawers.”
“The bottom drawer?”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
Think fast, Dave. “It was where he kept his spare cash.”
“Who else would have known that?”
“I don’t know.”
It was of course where Shel kept the other converters. Someone else was in on the secret!
“How much cash did he keep on hand?”
Dave shrugged. “Just small bills. Walking-around money. It wouldn’t have been worth a break-in. Certainly not killing someone.”
“You’d be surprised how little a life can be worth, Doctor. Would there have been anything else in that drawer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, whatever the killer was looking for, he found it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The other drawers were untouched.”
My God. A maniac loose with a converter.
“Are you okay, Dr. Dryden?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” His heart was pounding.
“You look pale.” She frowned, and he could see her make a decision. “Doctor, why don’t you tell me what the thief was after?”
Sure. Shel had a time-travel device in there. “I’ve no idea,” he said.
“Okay. The fire happened about 4:30 A.M. Friday morning. I wonder if you’d mind telling me where you were at that time?”
“At home in bed,” Dave said.
“And you were here all night, right?”
“Yes,” he said, and added, unnecessarily, “asleep.”
She nodded.
“You’re sure about all this?” asked Dave.
She kept writing. “There’s really no question that it was arson. And murder.”
Dave was beginning to feel guilty. Authority figures always made him feel guilty.
“And you can’t think of anyone who’d want him dead?”
“No.”
She tapped her notebook with her pen. “Do you know if he kept any jewelry in the house?”
“I doubt it. He didn’t wear jewelry. As far as I know, there was nothing like that around.”
Dave started thinking about the gold coins that they always took when they traveled. A stack of them had been stashed in a shoe box in Shel’s bedroom closet. (Dave had more of them upstairs in the wardrobe.) Could anyone have known about them? He thought about mentioning them. But they’d be hard to explain. Best keep quiet. And it would make no sense that he knew about a lot of gold coins in Shel’s shoe box but had never asked about them.
Her eyes wandered to one of the bookcases. It was filled with biographies and histories of the Renaissance. The eyes were dark and cool, black pools that seemed to be waiting for something to happen. She tilted her head slightly to get a better look at a title. It was Ledesma’s biography of Cervantes, in the original Spanish. “You speak Spanish?” she asked.
“Yes. More or less.”
“Did he also speak Spanish, Doctor?”
“Shel had some facility.”
Howard had gotten tired poking around. He circled back, picked out a chair, and sat down. “Dr. Dryden,” Lake continued, “you live alone?”
“That’s correct, Lieutenant.”
“And you were alone in the house Thursday night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I take it there’s no one who can corroborate any of this?”
“No. There was nobody here.” The question