Homicide Related by Norah McClintock Read Free Book Online Page B

they’re going out for drinks. We’ll have the place to ourselves until at least midnight.”
    We?
    â€œCome over at six,” she said. “I’ll make dinner.”
    And there it was in that grave-dark night—one bright little light, something to look forward to.

    Dooley was watching TV when his uncle got home. He notched down the volume and waited. His uncle went straight through to the kitchen. Dooley got up and followed him. His uncle poured himself a scotch, straight up. He downed it in one swallow and poured himself another, this one more generous. He took a sip before brushing wordlessly past Dooley on his way back into the living room, where he dropped down into an armchair.
    Dooley sat down again and waited, but his uncle didn’t say anything. He just worked on his scotch. He made pretty good progress, too, in pretty good time. Dooley had never seen his uncle drink like that. It made him wonder.
    â€œSo,” he said after another moment. “Was it her?”
    His uncle gave him a sharp look, like what kind of boneheaded question was that?
    Okay, then.
    â€œNow what?” Dooley said, mainly because he felt he had to say something, and he sure couldn’t say what was really on his mind.
    â€œNow they do an autopsy. When they finish that, they release the body and we do something about a funeral,” his uncle said, sounding a whole lot more annoyed than Dooley imagined he himself would if his sister had just died, assuming he had a sister, which he didn’t. “I’ll make some calls in the morning.”
    Dooley watched him for a moment, wondering if this was a good time. Probably not. Where Lorraine was concerned, there was no such thing as a good time, which meant he might as well come right out and ask the question he’d been wondering about.
    â€œYou said they found her downtown,” he said.
    â€œYeah. So?” He sounded pissed off. Or maybe that was just his way of showing grief.
    â€œSo, did the cops tell you anything? Do they know how long she’d been in town or what she was doing here?”
    His uncle met Dooley’s eyes for a split second, and Dooley was rattled by the change he saw in them, as if he’d been looking into a brightly lit window only to have someone suddenly pull the curtains shut. It took a moment before he answered.
    â€œShe lived here.”
    â€œLived here?” What did that mean?
    â€œShe had a place across town,” his uncle said.
    â€œFor how long?”
    â€œWhat difference does it make?”
    What difference?
    â€œFor how long?” Dooley said again. He felt his chest tighten.
    His uncle downed the last of the scotch and set his glass on a coaster on the side table. “A few years.”
    A few? That meant more than two. His eyes locked onto his uncle, who was staring at the empty glass, maybe doing what Dooley was doing, maybe wishing it was full and he could lift it to his lips and …
    â€œI asked you that time what she was up to,” Dooley said. “You said you had no idea.”
    His uncle glanced up at him, frowning slightly, like he’d been asked directions to a place he’d never heard of.
    â€œI thought she’d taken off,” Dooley said. He was breathing a little harder now. His fingers were tingling. He had to fight the urge to jump up out of his chair. “You know, because she was always talking about that, about going out west. I told you that, remember?”
    â€œWhat’s your point, Ryan?”
    â€œI thought she was gone.” That was his point. “And the whole time, she was living just across town?”
    â€œSo what if she was?” His uncle picked up his glass, saw that it was empty, and put it back down again. “You telling me that if you’d known where she was living, you’d have gone over there every week for Sunday dinner, something like that?”
    No, nothing like that. Dooley couldn’t imagine