Big Boned by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online

hated Owen enough to kill him. Sure, there’re kids who may not be—have been—overly fond of him, but he’s the hall director. Well, interim hall director. And ombudsman to the president’s office. Nobody’s supposed to like him. But nobody hated him—not that much. Not that I know of.”
    Detective Canavan flips through his notebook. “Veatch had anybody fired in the past couple months?”
    “Fired?” I laugh. “This is New York College. No one gets fired. They get transferred.”
    “This divorce he was going through. Acrimonious?”
    “How should I know?”
    Detective Canavan narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t you try to pretend like you don’t sit under that grate up there and listen to every conversation that goes on inside that office, young lady. You know good and well whether or not his divorce was acrimonious. Now tell me.”
    I sigh. “There was some back-and-forth over the wedding china. That’s it. Seriously. That’s all I heard.”
    Detective Canavan looks disappointed.
    “What about this graduate student strike thing? Is it serious?”
    “It is to them,” I say, thinking of Sarah. “And it is to the president’s office. If those guys really do go on strike, the rest of the unions affiliated with the college will be obligated to strike with them. And then there’ll be an unholy mess…right in time for graduation, too.”
    “And Veatch was arbitrating?”
    “He was head of the arbitration. But come on,” I say, shaking my head. “Isn’t it more likely he was hit by a stray bullet from a random drug shooting in the park? I mean, you know. You have undercover guys out there—”
    “Which is exactly why I know that bullet didn’t hit your boss at random,” Detective Canavan says woodenly. “My people were out in force, covering—”
    “If you say the usual suspects , I’m going to squeal with delight,” I warn him.
    He gives me a stern look. “Your boss is dead, Wells. Someone walked up to his office window and deliberately shot him assassination style, if not point-blank, then as close as. Someone who knew him, and someone who wanted him dead. It’s my job to figure out who did it. If you’re too busywith this new boyfriend of yours to quote help the investigation unquote this time, that’s music to my ears, to tell you the truth. The last thing I need is to have to worry about plucking your bony ass out of another near-death situation. Now just jot Romeo’s name down here so I can confirm your story with him later, and you can go.”
    I blink at him, feeling suddenly misty-eyed.
    “You really think my ass is bony?” I ask. “Detective Canavan, that’s—seriously—the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
    “Wells,” he says tiredly. “Get out.”
    Of course I have nowhere to go, since he’s taken over my desk. I can’t go back to the storage room. I honestly don’t think I can stomach any more power-to-the-people preaching from Sarah. The scent of tacos wafting from the grate has gotten pretty overwhelming. Sure, it’s only a little after eleven.
    But hey. I ran today. Would it be so wrong to have a little snack?
    Magda is sitting at the cash register, perfecting her two-inch robin’s egg blue (in honor of spring) nails with a sequined file that says PRINCESS on one side of it, and looking bored. She brightens when she sees me.
    “Heather,” she cries. The cafeteria is mostly empty so early in the day. The only people in it are residents who didn’t wake up in time for breakfast taking advantage of the all-day bagels, and all the members of the NYPD Magda has waved in for free, who’ve headed straight for the taco bar. “Is it true? Someone shot that”—she says a bad word in Spanish—“in the head?”
    “Geez, Magda,” I say. “He wasn’t that bad.”
    “Oh yes, he was,” Magda assures me. “One time he told me if he caught me giving you free DoveBars, he was going to write me up. I didn’t tell you, you know, because I didn’t want