Dead Sexy by Aleah Barley Read Free Book Online Page B

to be.
    The door to the house slid open and the old woman poked her nose out again. She gave me a sharp glance. “That’s a nice dress, white girl. Doesn’t stop you from being trash. Running around with some man. No better than you should be.”
    Un—freaking—believable. I pasted my most-professional smile on my face and produced a card from my bag. “My name’s Gemma Sinclair. I’m here from Sinclair Death Services.”
    There was a slight pause.
    “Why didn’t you say so?” The door opened a little bit further. “I’m sorry if I hurt your friend’s feelings. I don’t much hold with the government. You know how it is.”
    “Butting their heads in where they don’t belong.” I nodded my agreement. “Telling everybody else what to do. Most of the time, I think we’d be better off without them.”
    “It’s not like the old days.” Alice’s lips pulled up into a grim smile. “Back then the politicians were all corrupt, but at least you knew what they wanted. Grease a couple of palms, pass someone a bundle of cash. You might get your streetlights turned back on. Find you had a bus stop on the end of your street. These days…” she shrugged. “I had a fellow come by the house the other day from the department of planning. They’re planning to kick my ass out of this place. We’ve been here fifty years.”
    Clearing out the blighted neighborhoods was an idea that had been kicking around for more than forty years—ever since the riots—every once in a while someone got it in their head to move things forward. Nothing ever really happened.
    Still, it had to be scary for a woman without the know how to fight back or the resources to move on; someone who’d been in the same house for fifty years.
    I nodded politely, and the door slid open even further to give me a view of a cramped living room. There was a threadbare couch and two brown recliners. An old box, television flickered in the darkness.
    There was a man sitting on the couch eating off a tray. He was even more wizened and wrinkled than the old woman. He gave a quick nod as Alice ushered us inside and went back to his dinner.
    Alice led us back to their kitchen. Peeling yellow paint and cracked linoleum which matched the harvest gold color of the appliances. The refrigerator hummed loudly. She’d probably bought it before I was born. There was a large framed photograph hanging over the sink; an African-American man in his early forties, wearing a white T-shirt and a broad smile. A bright tattoo sprawled across his neck.
    George D. Fitzgerald, I presumed.
    Alice bustled around to make room for us at a white plastic table. “We don’t get a lot of visitors these days. Not since our boy—” Her voice cracked. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have gone to the store for some cookies.”
    “That’s not necessary.” D.S. pulled a chair away from the table, signaling for the old woman to sit down. “You’ve got a lovely house.”
    “You’re a liar.” The old woman cackled loudly as she sat down. “Still, you’ve got pretty manners. That’s something I don’t see a lot of these days. Fine manners and fine boys.” She squeezed D.S.’s hand. “Your mother must be proud of you.”
    “I like to think she would be,” he said. “She died a long time ago.” He slid another chair away from the table, giving me a pointed look this time.
    I shook my head and leaned back against the kitchen counter. From my vantage point, I could see through the living room to the front door and out the back window to the yard. Things were snug as a bug in a rug, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
    D.S. sat down beside Alice and patted her hand. “I need to talk to you about your son—.”
    Her gaze flickered to the photograph on the wall.
    “I don’t have a son,” she repeated, louder this time.
    “George D. Fitzgerald,” D.S. said the man’s name carefully. “You signed his death certificate.”
    “Hmmph,” the old woman sniffed.