"Jesus!" Kavaalen pronounced the _J_-sound as though it were _Zh_; he
gave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebody
gave him a good job!"
"Somebody's been seeing too many war-movies." McKenna got a cigarette out
of his tunic pocket and lit it in Rand's pipe-bowl. "Want to confess now,
or do you insist on a third degree with all the trimmings?"
Kavaalen looked wide-eyed at Rand, then at McKenna, and then back at
Rand. Rand laughed.
"Now, Mick!" he reproved. "You know I never kill anybody unless I have
a clear case of self-defense, and a flock of witnesses to back it up."
McKenna nodded and reassured his corporal. "That's right, Aarvo; when
Jeff Rand kills anybody, it's always self-defense. And he doesn't
generally make messes like this." He gave the body a brief scrutiny, then
turned to Rand. "You looked around, of course; what do you make of it?"
"Last night, sometime," Rand reconstructed, "Rivers had a visitor. A man,
who smoked cigars. He and Rivers were on friendly, or at least sociable,
terms. They sat back there by the fire for some time, smoking and
drinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that was
standard procedure, or because this conference was something clandestine.
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