Killer Crab Cakes by Livia J. Washburn Read Free Book Online Page A

annoying.
    Their bickering made Phyllis uncomfortable. She didn’t like it when families fought, and the hostility among these three was evidently of long standing. She started to get to her feet, saying, “I’ll go get Mr. McKenna’s things together—”
    “Before you do,” one of the brothers said, causing Phyllis to sink back into the armchair where she’d been sitting, “I for one would like to hear exactly what happened. All the chief of police said when he reached me at the office was that my father had passed away unexpectedly.”
    “Now who’s calling him my father?” Frances asked.
    “It’s just a figure of speech.”
    “So it’s all right for you but not for me?”
    Phyllis fought down the impulse to tell all three of them to behave—and to use her teacher voice to do it, too. Instead, hoping that they would stop arguing if she told them what they wanted to know, she said, “It appears that your father had a heart attack, or possibly a stroke, while he was fishing out on the pier early this morning.”
    “Who found him?” Frances asked.
    For once her brothers kept quiet and allowed Phyllis to answer the question. “My friend Mr. Fletcher and I were the ones who discovered that Mr. McKenna had passed away. We were walking out to the end of the pier, and as we passed your father, he fell into the water.”
    “You mean he had the heart attack at that exact moment?” asked either Oscar or Oliver. Phyllis wondered if there was any easy way to tell them apart. She had seldom seen twins so identical.
    “Well, no,” she admitted in answer to the question. “He must have . . . died . . . a few minutes earlier. We didn’t realize that until Mr. Fletcher slapped him on the shoulder . . . you know, just a friendly greeting from one fisherman to another . . . and Mr. McKenna sort of . . . toppled over.”
    “My God!” the other brother said. “You mean this guy Fletcher knocked Dad into the water?”
    “It was an accident,” Phyllis said, “and it didn’t really make any difference because I’m sure your father had already passed away—”
    “You can’t know that,” Frances said, suddenly leaning forward like a hound scenting something interesting. “For all we know, the two of you contributed to his death.”
    “Sounds to me like negligence,” the brother on her right said.
    “And a wrongful-death suit,” the brother on Frances’s left said.
    That was all Phyllis could stand. Without even realizing how she had gotten there, she found herself on her feet, and as she glared at the visitors, she said, “Good heavens, what’s wrong with you people? Your father just died, and all you can do is snipe at one another and threaten innocent people with lawsuits?”
    Frances’s chin lifted. “There’s no need to get unpleasant, Mrs. Newsom. We just came here to retrieve our father’s personal effects.”
    “All right. I’ll get them.”
    Phyllis stalked out of the parlor. She wished someone else were here so that she wouldn’t have to leave the three of them alone. They were all dressed in expensive clothing, so she didn’t really expect them to steal anything, but with people so—so annoying !—you couldn’t really tell what they might do.
    She got the master key from the office and went upstairs. She assumed that the door of the room Ed McKenna had occupied was locked, but she didn’t know that for sure. As far as she knew, no one had even tried the door.
    She grasped the knob and twisted it. Sure enough, it didn’t turn. McKenna hadn’t struck her as the sort of man who would go off and leave his room where just anybody could walk into it. She used the key and went inside.
    He didn’t have much other than fishing equipment. An old suitcase that showed marks of long use stood empty in the closet. Several pairs of khaki pants were hung up along with some plain, long-sleeved blue shirts and white shirts. She found strictly functional boxer shorts and socks in one of the dresser