Finally, Rivers's visitor got up to leave.
"Now, of course, he could have left, and somebody else could have come
here later, been admitted, and killed Rivers. That's a possibility," Rand
said, "but it's also an assumption without anything to support it. I
rather like the idea that the man who sat back there drinking and smoking
with Rivers was the killer. If so, Rivers must have gone with him to the
door and was about to open it when this fellow picked up that rifle,
probably from that rack, over there, and clipped him on the jaw with
the butt. Then he gave him the point three times, the second and third
probably while Rivers was down. Then he swung it up and slammed down with
it, and left it sticking through Rivers and in the floor."
McKenna nodded. "Lights on when you got here?" he asked.
"No; I put them on when I came in. The killer must have turned them off
when he left, but the deadlatch on the door wasn't set, and he doesn't
seem to have bothered checking on that."
"Think he left right after he killed Rivers?"
Rand shook his head. "No, that was just the first part of it. After he'd
finished Rivers, he went back to that desk and got all the cards Rivers
used to record his transactions on--an individual card for every item.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141