Dirty Harry 07 - Massacre at Russian River by Dane Hartman Read Free Book Online

sound like Harry had just emerged from a leper’s colony. “Turk told me they were bringing in cops from the south.” She held out the pie which she’d just finished baking. “Apple-peach, are you interested?”
    It struck Harry as odd that she reacted so impassively to his presence.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “You don’t know what you want,” she said. “I’ll cut you a piece, and you can at least try it. Sit down. I’ll put on some tea. Earl Gray all right with you? Or Thundercloud? Lots of caffeine in Thundercloud so don’t take it if you’re planning on a siesta this afternoon.”
    “Just water.”
    “I’ll make you the Earl Gray. You look like you need the sleep too much.” As she went about doing this she asked Harry if Turk had sent him. “He likes to check up on me. He calls me three or four times a day from the hospital. It’s like he’s jealous or something.”
    “That seems strange to you?”
    She gave Harry a questioning look. “He should know better.”
    “No, Turk didn’t send me. He might be upset if he knew I came as a matter of fact.”
    “Then it must be that clown he’s got working for him, Davenport. Am I right? Don’t answer. I know I’m right. Davenport suspects me of giving away all of Turk’s secrets. Do I look to you like a femme fatale? Mata Hari of Russian River? Believe it or not I am an innocent. I really am.”
    “What do you do for a living?”
    She gestured to the potholders she had hanging over the kitchen sink. “I make those. I do macramé. I do pottery. There’s a kiln I use not far from here. You want to see it, I’ll show you some time. I do a lot of things. Artsy-craftsy most of them. But all legal.”
    “No drugs?”
    “A couple of joints now and then, no big deal. Generally I’m a good girl. Nothing stronger than Thundercloud.”
    “I thought it was Earl Gray.”
    “For you, Earl Gray. For me, Thundercloud. I suffer from narcolepsy. Fall asleep at the drop of a hat.”
    “Narcolepsy and not narcotics?” Harry realized that he didn’t believe a word Elsie Cranston was telling him and, further, that he didn’t mind.
    She found this amusing and laughed. “That’s right. Each to his own.”
    “What do you and Turk talk about then?”
    “Is that in the nature of a professional inquiry, sir?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “We talk about what all young lovers talk about. Plans for the future that will never reach fruition, what he’ll do when he’s laid waste to all the marijuana fields, a beautiful life for the two of us in Washington. He hasn’t gotten it through his head that I am not going to Washington with him. I am not marrying him. On the other hand, he’s never going to lay waste to the marijuana fields either.”
    She leaned forward to pour out another cup of tea for Harry, but with such a pronounced motion that she succeeded in separating the opening of her shirt more than it already was. There was no break in her tan, it was even down to the rounded surfaces of her breasts.
    “You know that for a fact?”
    “Let’s just say that I know Turk well enough to have an idea of his limitations. He’s crazy, that one.”
    “Then why do you stay with him?”
    “You have it wrong. I don’t stay with him. He comes to see me, he calls me, he carries around this fantasy of me. But it’s not what you’d call tight. Not on my end anyway. When it gets too cumbersome then—” She made a snipping motion with her fingers. “Then I cut him off.”
    “You’re fairly ruthless for someone who says she’s an innocent.”
    “That’s me. A ruthless innocent. How do you like my pie?”
    “Excellent. I’m impressed.”
    “What did I tell you? I am a woman of a thousand skills.”
    One of those skills might be deception Harry considered, upon leaving Elsie Cranston. But she was so ingenuous, so self-assured, that it was difficult to decipher the precise nature of the deception. He could see why Turk liked her. He could see why a great many men