A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd

Author:Charles Todd [Todd, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction / Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780061233609
Google: sO8O4QaaBnEC
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

15

Rutledge found Padgett in the police station completing his report on the housebreaking. Even before he reached the office, he could hear the ragged tap of typewriter keys and an occasional grunt as something went wrong.

Padgett looked up, his ill temper aggravated by the interruption.

Rutledge said, not waiting for Padgett’s good humor to return, “You wouldn’t accompany me when I went to see Brunswick. It would have been wise if you had. He believes you had something to do with Harold Quarles’s death. He told me to ask you why you hated the man.”

Padgett’s reaction was explosive. He swore roundly, his face red with anger.

“While you were exchanging confidences, did he tell you that at the time I suspected him of drowning his wife? And I’ve yet to be satisfied that her death was a suicide. There’s no love lost between us.”

“He believes she was Quarles’s lover, and that the child she might have been carrying at the time of her death wasn’t her husband’s. Reason enough for murder.”

“Well, she wasn’t carrying a child at the time of her death. Not according to O’Neil. But she did have a tumor the size of a small cabbage. Brunswick believes the doctor is covering up the truth. They had words just before the funeral. Of course he—Brunswick—wouldn’t care to think he’d killed his wife for no reason other than his own jealousy.”

“Could she have borne children, if the tumor was safely removed?”

“Probably not. She wasn’t drowned at home, mind you, but in one of those streams on Sedgemoor. A dreary place to die. A dreary battlefield in its day, for that matter. She ought to have survived—if she’d changed her mind, she might have saved herself. The stream wasn’t all that deep. The only reason I didn’t take Brunswick into custody was that simple fact. But I’ve kept an eye on him since then.”

“What was your quarrel with the victim? You might as well tell me,” Rutledge said, “it will have to come out sooner or later.”

He could see the defiance in Padgett’s eyes as he surged to his feet and leaned forward over the desk, his knuckles white as they pressed against the scarred wooden top. “I see no reason to tell you anything. I’m a policeman, for God’s sake. Do you think I killed the man? If so, say that to my face, don’t go hinting about like a simpering woman.”

Rutledge held on to his own temper, knowing he’d provoked the anger turned against him and that the angry man across from him hoped to use it to deflect him from his probing.

“Padgett. I’ll speak to the Chief Constable if I have to. And don’t push your luck with me. My temper can be as short as yours.”

“’Ware,” Hamish warned Rutledge. “He’s likely to come across yon desk and throttle ye.”

But at mention of the Chief Constable, Padgett got himself under control with a visible effort.

“Leave the Chief Constable out of this!”

“Then talk to me.”

“I’m not a suspect. I don’t have to give you my private life to paw over.

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