Murder Brewed At Home (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 3) by Belle Knudson Read Free Book Online

to, but he's...well, let's just say he's no longer interested. It was an extramarital thing for him, too. Like I said, I tend to go for the healthy ones."
                  I turned my attention back to the books and we chatted about them for a bit: where she acquired them, had she'd ever gotten the first editions appraised, and so forth.
                  "I hear from people who are avid runners," I said, "that running takes up their lives almost 24/7. They don’t even get a chance to read. Is that true?"
                  She laughed. "Somewhat. You get caught up in the lifestyle, chatting with others about it, researching footwear, the latest trends…"
                  "Apps?"
                  "Apps, certainly."
                  I guess I was feeling exceptionally bold, for I said, "I read an article recently that you can share info with others. Like a network."
                  "Absolutely."
                  "I imagine it's a kind of friendly competition."             
                  "It's supposed to be friendly," she said with a chuckle. "It isn’t always. The info gets shared, sometimes in real time, and you get encouragement and cheers from your network, and then you go onto social media and see this passive-aggressiveness from them."
                  "In what way?"
                  "It's hard to explain. It's all a big cliquey club, but there's infighting. Arguments over how to time yourself, about technique. It gets personal."
                  "Huh," I said. "I guess I'm having trouble picturing how that's so, but then again, I guess some people are just like that – passive-aggressive, I mean. Did you ever have personal experience with that?"
                  "Of course. Our dear departed Mr. Young was one such character. He made quite a few enemies. How many people were in his running network?"
                  "Just two."
                  "There you go," she said, shaking her head in disappointment. "No doubt he started off with about ten or twenty. You lose 'em quickly when you act like that."
                  "Like what?" I said, looking her in the eye.
                  "Like a self-righteous jerk. I'm sorry, I know it's rude to speak ill of the dead, but he was self-righteous, always bragging about his running stats and turning the whole thing into a competition of strong vs. weak, rather than fostering a positive atmosphere, and...oh, I know I shouldn’t be telling you this..."
                  She paused, and I prayed to the gods of gossip that she'd eventually continue.
                  "He was," she began again, "cheating. What's worse is that he sort of bragged about it. Not in any overt way. Just little jokes about getting away from the wife, or how running provided a great excuse for having an affair. Like I said, they were obvious jokes, but you joke about something like that often enough and people start getting suspicious."
                  "Can I ask you something?"
                  "Why did I remain friends with him? I don’t know. I guess I'm just not the type of woman who ends friendships."
                  We said our goodbyes and she told me to call her for whatever I needed. And I prepared for my next interview.
     

Chapter 5
     
                  Allan Chu washed his hands diligently as I watched. He, like Maggie, had answered my email pretty quickly, saying he was "eager to help out in any way possible.”
                  And now, here I was in his kitchen, watching him wash his hands. He'd just gotten finished preparing a marinade for pork tenderloin.
                  "I hate handling meat," he said. "All kinds of bacteria."
                  He was a man after my own heart, Allan Chu