A Dose of Murder by Lori Avocato Read Free Book Online Page A

grind. “Yes, Daddy, you did. But I need something smaller.”
    Uncle Walt scraped a forkful of potato pancake across his dish. Mother raised an eyebrow at him, but he ignored her. “Smaller is better these days. Ask all the chicks at the senior citizens center.”
    My parents rolled their eyes. I lost my appetite, thinking they were going down
that
road with Uncle Walt. After I set my fork down, I made a mental note to call Doc Taylor again. He really, really needed to take me out to dinner soon.
    My mother put the rest of the pancakes on my father’s dish without even asking. Of course, after forty-three years of marriage, they had some kind of matrimonial mental telepathy between them. He started to eat them all.
    â€œI still don’t understand about this new job. I’m thrilled you found something, although you could have taken a break and stayed here with us instead of living with that homosexual man,” she said.
    â€œWe aren’t ‘living together,’ and Miles is my best friend.” She’d always called him that, but treated him as one of her sons soon after she’d found out his parents had died in a skydiving accident.
    â€œOh, nothing against him, darling, he is a doll. It’s just that family should be taking care of you when you have no money, although I told you numerous times you needed to start a vacation club savings account—”
    â€œI have a job now. I told you that I’m going to help out at Miles’s uncle’s insurance agency.”
    â€œI know, darling—” She started to stack the dirty dishes in front of her. “But when you said you’d be working there, I thought filing, answering phones. Not going out and spying on people. What is this world coming to?”
    I wasn’t going to share that I’d felt the same way about the job originally. Hell, I’d never be caught dead admitting that I thought like my mother. After a quick shudder, I said, “They need to be spied on, Mom. Some people cheat the insurance companies out of millions.”
    Daddy looked up. His eyes widened. If he weren’t such a pious man, I’d think he’d want to hear how they did that. Instead he said, “They should buy lottery tickets. They could win big and win honestly.”
    After retiring, and playing the lotto 364 days of the year, he still hadn’t won “big” on the daily numbers. He didn’t buy a ticket on Good Friday, out of respect.
    â€œAnyway, I need a very small video camera, a digital camera and a few more things. So—” The plea stuck in my throat. How I hated to ask my parents for money. It would be the third, fourth, and fifth degree until I described every detail of my new job. I’d
owe
them. Ack.
    I looked up to see Uncle Walt waving at me while my parents ate. “What—”
    He waved frantically, then laid a finger over his closed lips. Okay, I get it. He didn’t want me to go on about asking for money. I’d humor him until dessert. Tonight had to be bread pudding. Not my favorite, though. My mother makes better desserts than Bellinski’s Pastry Shop, but Friday night wasn’t the time to come looking for good sweets.
    Uncle Walt got up. “I need help . . . in my room.”
    My father started to get up. Uncle Walt pushed a hand on his shoulder. “Pauline has smaller fingers.”
    I looked at my hand and wondered if Uncle Walt was hitting the Vodka too much. But I stood and followed him.
    Mother clattered the dishes as she must have gotten up to set them by the sink. She refused a dishwasher every Christmas from us kids. Said she could do a better job than any machine and didn’t want to waste the cabinet space, although she had two empty drawers and one cabinet under the sink where she only kept a bucket in case of leaks. I’ve never known the sink to leak.
    Uncle Walt waved me into his room. The old maple furniture