Carol O’Connell
Killing Critics
The third book in the Kathleen Mallory series, 1996
Many thanks to the people who answered my questions and extended their courtesy.
Dianne Burke, Search & Rescue Research Associates, Tempe, Arizona, for her patience and diligence. (LFQYO1A @prodigy.com)
Robbin Murphy, Creative Director of artnetweb, for a tour of the system, (http://artnetweb.com/artnetweb)
YTNOP Music, for the use of an atmospheric Jean-Luc Ponty instrumental.
FOR MY FATHER
He was one of those quiet heroes who worked until the day he died. He was also a man who could do a financial transaction on a handshake; he bought our first house that way. And people who’ve known him since he was a child will tell you he never told a lie in his entire life. What spare time he had was spent in public service; what spare cash he had was given away. This remarkable man filled a church when he died, and the planet was diminished.
PROLOGUE
Speakers were hidden in every wall, their cloth covers painted over many times to render them invisible and to baffle the sound of Jean-Luc Ponty’s Civilized Evil. Throughout the evening, the dark sweet music of the jazz violin had been muted-strings and drums subdued to the level of a backdrop for a hundred inane conversations. A ripple of notes chaining into chords wove around the art gallery patrons as a subliminal entity. The crowd inhaled the music with every breath, and it hovered over their food and wine.
Dean Starr’s head nodded, almost imperceptibly, to the beat of a drum just beyond the reach of his awareness. Much was beyond him this evening. In fact, he had just been stabbed and hadn’t the wit to realize it.