Touch of Evil (aka. Badge of Evil) by Whit Masterson

Author:Whit Masterson [Masterson, Whit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Noir, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9781440540639
Amazon: B0075FEUZY
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 2012-12-17T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AFTER a few years of marriage, a man and a woman will generally discover that they are sharing more than bed, board and bank account. The sharing also extends to intangibles, such as moods. It is seldom that one frowns while the other smiles and vice versa, although such might make for a better balanced existence. But if a man is peevish, his wife will likely be also. And add to this life’s uncanny knack of stockpiling annoyances for the moments when they are least capable of being met; a man seldom loses his job and comes home to a joyous account of how well Junior is doing in school. Usually he is greeted with the news that the water heater has exploded.

Mitch Holt wasn’t given to extremes of disposition as a rule. Ordinarily he was the most even-tempered of men. But his disappointment in Adair had curdled his entire day and he took its sourness home with him.

There he received no comfort from Connie. “I absolutely refuse to call Papa and tell him again that we aren’t coming,’’ she stated, almost before Holt had taken off his hat.

“I don’t see any way out of it.”

“Well, I do. This time we’re going — tomorrow morning — just like we planned, and that’s that.”

Despite her conclusive tone, Connie was not past reasoning with or cajoling and, another time, Holt would have done it. But not tonight. He was in no mood for persuasion and Connie’s use of Adair’s favourite tag-phrase — ”that’s that” — only made him bristle. “I can’t leave tomorrow and if you insist on going then, you’ll have to go alone”

“Well, maybe I will,” she snapped and flounced off to the kitchen to prepare their dinner with a good deal of unnecessary pan rattling.

Neither Connie nor Holt meant it and they both knew it. They were merely following the conjugal pattern of expending their irritations on each other. They would inevitably apologize and heal the breach and it would be forgotten. But until that moment the atmosphere was one of frosty politeness. During dinner, with their daughter to act as neutral and intermediary, the strain might not have been noticeable to an outsider. But when Nancy had been tucked into bed and man and wife were alone in the living room there was no denying its existence. They each hid themselves away behind their reading matter, emerging only now and then to throw the other a questioning are-you-still-mad glance. But neither was yet ready to make the initial overtures and the quarrel might have continued to bedtime if it hadn’t been for the interruption.

Holt heard the automobile stop in front of the house but the sound didn’t stir his curiosity enough to make him turn his head toward the big picture window. Cars stopped nearby all the time and only once in ten did the fact have anything to do with him. He wasn’t expecting any callers tonight — let’s see, he’d paid the paper boy for

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