A Function of Murder by Ada Madison Page B

moment.”
    “You can’t tell me at the moment or you don’t know?”
    Virgil smiled. “Anything else I can do for you?”
    I shook my head. I knew when to call it quits. For now.
    I looked toward the crowd, still milling around the fountain, just outside the crime
     scene tape. The news crew hadn’t packed it in yet. A stiff young man was being recorded
     for his fifteen minutes of fame. How much more could there be to say about the incident?
     Enough to fill a whole news hour, I supposed.
    I didn’t want to walk close to the gathering by myself, especially since I’d spotted
     a few students I knew. I was in no mood to chat, and even less inclined to be interviewed
     by a woman with so much hair spray the breezes were redirected when they hit her “do.”
    “Would you walk me to Bruce’s car?” I asked Virgil.
    Virgil rose and extended his arm. I guessed I looked like I needed help.

I pulled up to my house and parked Bruce’s car in front. My little blue cottage was
     dark except for the small floodlight that clicked on when I walked toward the door.
     I’d hoped to find candles burning in the window and Bruce waiting with a cold drink.
     Or a hot drink. Anything to welcome me. You’d think I’d been the needy one lying in
     a hospital bed, or called to duty on my evening off.
    I could almost smell a little bruschetta snack. It had been a long time since my stuffed
     scrod dinner, and the clerks at Jimmie’s didn’t make milk shakes as generously as
     they used to.
    Inside, I was tempted to walk past the blinking number eleven on my answering machine
     and head straight for the shower. I was sure my cell phone, now turned back on, also
     was bursting with voice mails and texts. I didn’t think I could handle them, especially
     after the grueling interview with Virgil. I’d get to them later. Right now I had to
     cleanup. Though I knew it was physically impossible, I felt I had poor Mayor Graves’s blood
     splatter all over my clothes.
    Rring, rring. Rring, rring.
    But even at a few minutes before midnight, I couldn’t ignore a summons in the present,
     especially when I saw that it was Bruce calling from his landline. Uh-oh, he’d gone
     home. There’d be no shared drinks tonight.
    “Hey, Sophie. I’ve been leaving messages everywhere. You okay?”
    “I just got in. I had my phone off while I was being grilled by Detective Mitchell.”
     I hoped I sounded lighter and breezier than I felt.
    Bruce chuckled. “I left the hospital just as Virge was coming in.”
    I couldn’t believe I’d been whining about going home when Virgil still had a long
     night ahead of him.
    “Is the mayor…?” I held my breath.
    “Gone.” One word, in a voice that was soft and low.
    I carried my phone to the den, flicking lights on all the way, and fell onto the couch.
     My body seemed to sag another six inches, from the inside out. “How awful, Bruce.”
    “Yeah, everyone did their best, though it didn’t look good from the start. He suffered
     an intrathoracic hemorrhage when his right lung was penetrated.”
    “By the letter opener?” I couldn’t imagine a benign instrument like the Henley College
     letter opener being the cause of a mortal wound. It never seemed that sharp when I
     used it for its intended purpose. “How could a simple letter opener do all that damage?”
    “Anything can do a lot of damage in the right hands. Or the wrong hands. Guys in prison
     use whittled down soap, remember. It’s a matter of the amount of force, in the right
     spot, with the right…” Bruce paused. “You don’t need to know this right now, do you?”
    No, I didn’t. “It’s okay. I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing for his family.” I felt
     I should also offer condolencesto Bruce, who’d lost two people in one day, first a little boy’s father in a car accident
     and now the mayor. I couldn’t imagine the letdown if your job description was to keep
     people alive and you failed. “You must be