A Most Curious Murder by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Read Free Book Online Page B

ran away, ma’am.”
    Zoe shook her head. “She wouldn’t. And she didn’t. He did something . . .”
    “You were here last night, right?” he interrupted.
    “All night. Most of it hunting for my dog.”
    “Until about what time?”
    “I was out until about four thirty.”
    “In the morning?”
    She nodded.
    “You didn’t see Adam Cane?”
    She shook her head.
    “You two weren’t exactly friends.”
    “I didn’t kill the man,” Zoe said. “Look at me, Chief. Do I look like I could hit anybody in the head with a hoe?”
    He gave Zoe a long, speculative look. “Thing is,” he said, “you wouldn’t have to be big to kill him.”
    “Wield a hoe and crack in his head? You’ve got to be kidding.”
    He shook his head. “Found a trip wire. Side to side over your path. Adam Cane was on the ground when somebody struck him. One blow to his head and one to the middle of his chest. Could’ve been anybody. Somebody set a trap. That makes this a premeditated murder.”
    “Can’t be,” Zoe protested. “I saw my fairy house. He fell over that. Very sad . . . but . . . a trip wire?”
    He shrugged. “We’ll be checking for fingerprints on the stakes that held the wire and on the hoe. Maybe that’s all it will take. Sure hope you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    “It’s my hoe,” Zoe protested as the chief got out of his chair. “My fingerprints will be all over it.”
    “And I touched it,” Jenny spoke up. “I was trying to move it away from Adam.”
    Ed Warner stood, hitched up his pants, and scratched at the back of his neck. “We’ll see what’s what when I get the report back from Traverse City. Know anybody else who might have wanted Adam dead? I mean, besides you, Ms. Zola? Him hating your dog so bad and now your dog’s gone . . . seems like a good reason to me.”
    Zoe said nothing.
    Ed had a few questions for Jenny. Not much, and then he was gone.

Chapter 9
    In the morning, Jenny drove to Draper’s Superette. Dora was at Zoe’s. She couldn’t stand the thought of Zoe being alone. That left Jenny to play provider and search for provisions.
    She drove into the familiar, unpaved parking lot and parked amid a long line of blue, red, and black pickups.
    The small market sat away from the commercial parts of town, in the midst of the forest, with Lake Michigan as a backdrop. Today the waterscape, off on the horizon, was a sheet of sun sparks. Her hands cupped above her eyes, it made her smile to watch the lake move in ridges of light. It could have been the backdrop to her life, the one immutable forever. No matter what terrible things happened, she had to admit she was happier here on the side of the lake where she’d grown up, where life didn’t whirl past as it did in Chicago.
    Jenny took a single, long breath and headed toward the market.
    Despite the out-of-town location, Draper’s was the town center for neighbor meeting neighbor, for gossip spreading, for reputations ruined, but also for money raised for a family in need, for funeral expenses if a family had no money. Draper’s was where clothes and toys and furniture and food were collected,where notices went up for spaghetti suppers in aid of those whose houses burned or were struck by a tornado or crushed in a winter of record snow.
    After Johnny Arlen dropped her and married Angel, she’d stopped going to Draper’s. The market had blazed with indignation—people on both sides, hers or Johnny’s. She even heard of a fistfight or two in the parking lot over who was at fault.
    Wind off the lake pushed at her as she headed toward the store, where old, out-of-date posters hung in the large, flyblown windows. A half-torn banner advertising a winter sale on antifreeze flapped over the automatic front doors. Two ancient benches, touting a defunct auto repair shop, sat out front, while shopping baskets gathered helter-skelter, one—wind behind it—making a wild break for freedom across the gravel lot.
    Besides