The Snake Tattoo by Linda Barnes Read Free Book Online

said. “That was a client.” Her tone let me know she thought he was my version of the Twin Brothers. Which was dumb because Jerry Toland, though attractive, would have been cradle-snatching for Roz, never mind me. And if I had stooped to cradle-snatching why the hell would the snatchee have been sleeping on the couch? “He had to leave,” she continued. “I let him out. He’s cute.”
    â€œGreat,” I said.
    â€œTrouble?” she said.
    â€œSomebody come for him?” I asked.
    â€œNope.”
    â€œAnybody waiting for him outside?”
    â€œNah.”
    â€œTerrific,” I said flatly.
    â€œHe left you a note.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œI stuck it on the fridge.”
    That’s one of our methods of communication. I probably would have noticed the note within the next three months. Roz is supposed to keep the refrigerator-door-bulletin-board organized, toss out year-old messages, expired supermarket coupons, stuff like that, but she rarely does.
    This note was more like a scrap, a torn sheet of an address book that took some deciphering. It said, “Try Elsie first. Sorry to run. Thanks for everything.” At least that’s what Roz thought it said. Jerry had terrible handwriting.
    Roz started humming a jingle from a TV commercial. She keeps the tube blaring while she paints, and it does strange things to her mind and her art. She seemed brisk and cheerful, like she’d slept nine hours instead of caterwauling most of the night. I needed to talk to her, to make a declaration about the bathroom and the Twin Brothers. I needed to say that while I didn’t care with whom she slept, I didn’t want her sleeping arrangements to taint her judgment concerning bathroom design.
    â€œCarlotta,” she said as if she could read my mind, “hey, you worried about the Brothers?”
    â€œRight,” I said.
    â€œRelax, okay?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThe bathroom’s gonna knock you out. Shazam!”
    â€œRoz, I want a bathroom the cat won’t be embarrassed to pee in, okay? I don’t want state of the art. I want your basic normal bathroom.”
    â€œBut you said—”
    â€œI said beige, not black. I said pink, not orange. Are they color-blind, or deaf, or what?”
    â€œCarlotta, you gotta trust me,” she said. She smiled enigmatically and waltzed out the door. I could hear her heels tap up the stairs.
    I felt like going back to bed and starting over. Instead I opened the fridge, found a carton of Tropicana, and poured a tumblerful. Orange juice clears my head.
    Roz had deserted her copy of the Herald —I get the Globe —on the kitchen table, and sure enough, they had Mooney’s story on page one, milking it for all it was worth. Reading between the lines, they seemed to be trying to link him to the other current police scandal, the one about collecting special-duty pay for not showing up at bars and sporting events. I could no more see Mooney taking cash for a job he hadn’t done than I could see him roughing up somebody during an arrest, but I admit, the article made me think.
    I wondered what shape Mooney’s finances were in. I wondered if his mom had been sick, if he’d had any special expenses lately. Then I realized that all across New England people were doing likewise, looking for reasons for Mooney’s fall from grace, even though the Herald was careful to use “alleged” in every other sentence. People who didn’t even know Mooney were clucking over his downfall. That made me mad. I wondered if Mooney hid the papers from his mom.
    I tossed the Herald in the trash and reread Jerry Toland’s note. After a glass and a half of orange juice, I had the presence of mind to go into the living room, come back with my notebook, and leaf through the pages until I discovered the name “Elsie” in with last night’s scribblings: Elsie McLintock, Valerie’s