A Misty Mourning by Rett MacPherson Read Free Book Online Page A

items scattered on top. The room look lived in, even if only on a short-term basis.
    â€œYou don’t have to turn off the music for me,” I said. “I happen to like the Offspring.”
    â€œDon’t think for one minute that you can come in here and pretend to like the in music and that I’ll think you’re hip and forget that you were the first one in Granny’s room. It won’t work,” she said with more venom than I was ready for.
    â€œWell,” I said. “For your information, I’m not the least bit hip, that I know. But I do like the Offspring. I like almost every kind of music there is. I’m a huge Beethoven fan, too, which makes me an old fuddy-duddy. So I assume that makes me a hip old fuddy-duddy? I had no idea that the music I listened to decided my fate on the hip scale. Is that why you listen to it?”
    She studied me a moment. Clearly, she was not ready for my retort, as much as I was not ready for her attack in the first place. “What do you want?”
    â€œI simply was going to ask you to turn the music down a little bit, because I know that it drives my grandmother crazy, and I wouldn’t doubt it had the same effect on your grandfather,” I said. “And then I was also going to try and reassure you that I did not hurt your granny.”
    She leaned back on the bed and somehow managed to get her legs under her in one of those pretzel positions that only teenagers can make look painless, and that I couldn’t even begin to attempt in my present state. “My uncle Prescott said that you came here for the boardinghouse and that you killed Granny to make sure that you got it.”
    â€œWhy would I have to do that?” I asked. “The new will states that I receive the boardinghouse. The old one does not. So, therefore, if I was after the boardinghouse, I would want to make sure that your granny lived. At least until the will was read.”
    She thought about that a moment.
    â€œYou might inform your uncle Prescott of that.”
    She said nothing to that, but she looked around the room with big tears welling up in her eyes. “I can’t believe somebody wouldhurt her. She was just a little old lady. She was harmless.” Her voice was nearly a whisper from her grief, and suddenly that tough, rebellious teenager slid away, revealing the true fragile state of most of them. Teenagers’ hormones take them on a wild ride that they can’t escape until Mother Nature says so: it was kind of like being pregnant, now that I thought about it. No wonder I was so grouchy.
    â€œI don’t think Clarissa Hart was as harmless as you think,” I said with a smile. “The woman surfed the Net and downloaded her will to her lawyer, a feat that I couldn’t accomplish.”
    â€œShe was so cool,” Danette said.
    â€œYes,” I answered. “And I don’t have the foggiest idea why somebody would want to hurt an old lady like Clarissa Hart.”
    I walked toward the door and was just about into the hall when Danette turned the stereo back on. She quickly turned it down to a normal decibel level. “Is that too loud?” she asked.
    â€œNo, that’s just perfect,” I said.
    â€œShut the door on the way out,” she said. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
    I did as she asked. On to get some gossip.
    I reached the room of Sherise Tyler at the end of the hall on the first floor, directly under Clarissa Hart’s room. I knocked on the door and barely had my hand back to my side when the door was sucked open. Sherise Tyler looked as though she was expecting somebody and it wasn’t me. The disappointment on her face was obvious, and she knew that I’d caught it.
    â€œMrs. O’Shea,” she said from way up in the clouds. This woman was tall, tall, tall. “What brings you to my room?”
    â€œI was hoping that I could have a word with you.”
    She only