Legion by William Peter Blatty EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Authors: William Peter Blatty
- Language: English
- Genre: Police Procedurals
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Sunday, March 13
HE THOUGHT OF DEATH IN ITS INFINITE GROANINGS, OF Aztecs
ripping out living hearts and of cancer and three–year–olds buried alive and
he wondered whether God was alien and cruel, but then remembered
Beethoven and the dappling of things and the lark and “Hurrah for
Karamazov” and kindness. He stared at the sun coming up behind the
Capitol, streaking the Potomac with orange light, and then down at the
outrage, the horror at his feet. Something had gone wrong between man and
his creator, and the evidence was here on this boathouse dock.
“I think they’ve found it, Lieutenant.”
“Excuse me?”
“The hammer. They’ve found it.”
“The hammer. Oh, yes.”
Kinderman’s thoughts found a grip on the world. He looked up and saw
the crime lab crew on the dock. They were gathering with eyedropper, test
tube and forceps; remembering with camera, sketchpad and chalk. Their
voices were hushed, mere whispered fragments, and they moved without
sound, gray figures in a dream. Nearby, the blue police dredgeboat’s engines
churned with the morning’s completion of dread.
“Well, I guess we’re almost finished here, Lieutenant.”
“Are we really? Is that so?”
Kinderman squinted against the cold. The search helicopter was
skimming away, throbbing low above the mud–brown darkness of the waters
with its lights blinking softly red and green. The detective watched it growing
smaller. It dwindled, in the dawn like a fading hope. He listened, inclining his
head a little; then he shivered and his hands began to dig deeper into the
pockets of his coat. The shrieking of the woman had grown more piercing. It
clawed at his heart and the twisted forests silent on the banks of the icy river.
“Jesus.”
Kinderman looked at Stedman. The police pathologist was down on one
knee beside a sheet of soiled canvas. Something lumpy lay under it. Stedman
was staring at it, frowning in concentration. His body was motionless. Only
his breath had life; it came frosty and then vanished in the hungry air.
Abruptly he stood up and looked at Kinderman oddly. “You know those cuts
on the victim’s left hand?”
“What about them?”
“Well, I think they’ve got a pattern.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, I think so. A sign of the zodiac. I think Gemini.”
Kinderman’s heart skipped a beat. He drew a breath. Then he looked at
the river. A Georgetown University crew team scull slipped silent and slim
behind the bulky stern of the dredge. It reappeared, and then vanished
underneath Key Bridge. A strobe light flashed. Kinderman looked down at
the canvas throwsheet. No. It couldn’t be, he thought. It couldn’t be.
The pathologist followed Kinderman’s gaze and his hand, blotched red
from the freezing air, pulled the folds of his coat collar tighter together. He
regretted not wearing his scarf that day. He’d forgotten. He’d dressed in too
much of a hurry. “What a weird way to die,’’ he said softly. “So unnatural.”
Kinderman’s breathing was emphysematous; white vapor wisped at his
lips. “No death is natural,” he murmured.
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