Orion Rising by Terence Faherty

Author:Terence Faherty [Faherty, Terence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Terence Faherty

• • •

I decided to visit the bars on Washington Street on the following afternoon. The odds of encountering the bartenders and waitresses who had been on duty during Harry’s alleged visit would have been better after dark, but I wanted daylight. I’d already managed to get myself thrown out of a classroom building with my questioning. There was no telling what trouble I could get into in a neighborhood called the combat zone. Not that I was honest enough to admit I was scared. I told myself that I’d probably encounter the same people at three that I would have at eight, and that, as a bonus, they’d be fresher mentally.

I rationalized my decision to take someone with me almost as desperately. I’d been wanting to confront Murray over his nonalibi, but I hadn’t found the right moment. Now I was tempted by the chance to get two unpleasant jobs out of the way at the same time. At breakfast I asked Murray to go barhopping. He guessed right off that I was more interested in Harry’s alibi than beer, but he signed on anyway. We arranged to meet at the Green Line trolley station across from the campus church.

Murray talked about the Red Sox during the long ride downtown. I let him, watching block after block of apartment buildings slip by and thinking how nice it would be to trade any one of them for Two Sutherland. My bodyguard quieted when the trolley slipped underground at Kenmore Square, becoming a subway train. It was my chance to mention his rehearsal disappearances, but I was too busy studying the tunnel wall that charged our window or retreated as the old car lurched and swayed.

In the end, it was Murray who brought the subject up. We emerged from the catacombs at the Boylston Street station on the edge of the Common and headed away from the park, toward Washington Street. I spotted the Red Garter as soon as we got to Washington, but I decided to save it for last. We started with the bar closest to the subway stop on the theory that Harry would have. Two of the first three bars we tried served us without asking for identification, which was better luck than Harry claimed to have had. But none of the help recognized Harry from the picture I showed them, a group shot of Harry and his parents on a grassy Cape Cod dune, which I’d borrowed from our room. The excuses were consistent: Boston was full of thirsty college kids and we all looked alike.

We were lingering over our beers in the third bar when Murray said, “You checked up on me yet, Keane?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What did you find out?”

“That you really don’t have an alibi. You skipped out of your rehearsal that night in plenty of time to get back to Cleveland Circle by nine-thirty. Where did you go?”

“I walked around in the rain, like you. Too bad we didn’t bump into one another. Know why I skipped?”

“You got into a fight with the director.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.