(LB2) Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

when I came home, my door was unlocked,” Deedra had insisted.
    “I locked it as I left,” I’d insisted right back. “Though,” I’d added, struck by a sudden recollection, “Pardon was on his way up the stairs as I was coming down, and of course he has a master key.”
    “Why would he go into my apartment?” Deedra had asked, but not as if the idea was so ridiculous. As it sunk in even further, Deedra’d looked…well, a strange combination of angry and uneasy. I’d been intrigued by the sight of thought processes echoing through Deedra’s empty head.
    Deedra Dean, Deedra of the shiny blond hair, voluptuous figure, and a face completely undermined by its lack of chin. Deedra is always brightly made up and maniacally animated to distract the eye from that damning absence. Deedra moved into the apartment building three years ago and had screwed every male who had ever lived in the building except (maybe) Pardon Albee and (almost certainly) T. L. York. Deedra’s fond mother, a sweet, well-to-do widow who recently remarried, subsidizes Deedra heavily. Lacey Dean Knopp is apparently under the impression that Deedra is dating around until she finds Mr. Right. To Deedra, every man is apparently Mr. Right, for a night or two, anyway.
    I’ve told myself often that it isn’t any of my business, and I’ve wondered why Deedra’s habits infuriate me. Gradually, I’ve come to the conclusion that Deedra’s total lack of self-respect dismays me, Deedra’s risk taking frightens me, and the ease with which Deedra has sex makes me envious.
    But as long as I get paid on time by Deedra’s mama, I keep reminding myself every ten minutes that Deedra is an adult, nominally at least, who can arrange her life as she chooses.
    “Well, just don’t let it happen again,” Deedra had lectured me last week, with a lame attempt at sternness, after she’d accused me of leaving the door unlocked. Even Deedra’s feeble brain had finally registered my anger. “Oh, gotta run! I had to come back to get my insurance card. I’ve got to get my car inspected on my lunch hour and get that tag renewal notice in the mail.”
    I’d wanted to say something to Deedra about her lifestyle, something that would make a difference, but I knew nothing I could say would make an impression. And it was truly none of my business; Deedra was supposed to be grown up. I’d watched out the window as Deedra hurried from the front door to her red sports car, left idling at the curb. Deedra’s mother had made the down payment on that unreliable but flashy car; Deedra’d told me that quite casually.
    “Did you ever find out if Pardon had been in your apartment?” I asked today. There was no one else in the ground-floor hall, and I kept my voice low. I had been following my own train of thought so intently, I’d forgotten that Deedra might be thinking of something quite different, and she looked at me now as if I was a very peculiar person.
    “No,” she said fiercely. I raised my eyebrows and waited. “And you better not tell the police you talked to me about that, either!”
    “Oh?”
    “You won’t get any work in Shakespeare ever again,” Deedra threatened. “I don’t want to be involved in that old bastard getting killed.”
    “Do you seriously think,” I said, one side of my mouth curling up in a very dry smile, “that anyone in this town would give up an excellent and reliable maid like me to protect your hide?”
    Deedra’s blue eyes widened in shock. A door opened on the second floor, and down the stairs came the Garden Apartments’ only black tenant, Marcus Jefferson. Marcus, a handsome man in his late twenties, gave us a startled look, muttered a greeting, and pushed past us to the front door, which gave its heavy groan as it inched shut behind him.
    This building was full of people behaving peculiarly today. When I looked back at Deedra, her face was brick red and she was watching the front door close on Marcus Jefferson.
    Uh-oh. I