Taking Liberty by Lawrence Dunning

Author:Lawrence Dunning [DUNNING, LAWRENCE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504028967
Publisher: Open Road Distribution
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was almost seven o’clock that evening when Toberts looked up from his desk, removed his glasses to rub his aching eyes, and realized that nearly everyone else had left hours ago. He started to pick up the phone to call Jessie and have her meet him in town for dinner, then decided he was just too tired for that. All he really wanted was to go home and go to bed.

Knowing that he wouldn’t be working on them tonight, he left the original manuscript, the decoded version, and the Shakespeare book locked up in the office document safe and drove to his house in Montmartre.

There were no lights on to welcome him home after three days, and Jessie was not there. Not her fault, of course, since she hadn’t known when he would return. She was probably out drinking with a friend, already becoming disgustingly flirtatious with whatever men she would have found in some high-class bistro. Or maybe she had a lover; maybe neither side of their bed had been slept in these last two nights.

Deciding that he really didn’t care one way or the other, Toberts made himself a very strong martini and a pressed ham and Camembert sandwich on half a small loaf of French bread. The food tasted good, the drink even better. He made another triple martini and sat in the living room in his favorite soft chair, the dancing purplish shadows of the television set the only light in the room. All of his friends back in the States told him how bad American television was, but they had obviously never seen French TV. It was absolutely mind-numbing, but that was what he wanted just now.

After a while he began to think about Solange and how much he wanted her and missed her. He thought about calling her at her home, if he could find the number, but reluctantly admitted to himself that she very well might not appreciate that. Instead, he fixed himself another drink. As he walked back through the house from the kitchen to the living room he noticed something peculiar, not for most homes but for his home—the place had been cleaned and straightened thoroughly and almost professionally. Jessie detested housework of any kind and had done little of it in the last few years. He wondered at first whether she might have called in one of those house-cleaning services while he was gone, but it wasn’t like Jessie even to notice the dirt and dust, much less to do anything about it. It struck him as so odd that his natural inquisitive instincts took over immediately and he began to search for a reason.

It didn’t take him long to find it. In the garbage bag, which she had pushed under the kitchen sink but had not yet emptied, in among the egg shells and coffee grounds and butcher’s paper, were the unmistakable remains of cigarettes that had been meticulously field stripped and shredded. And only one person that Toberts knew did that to his cigarette butts.

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