Murder Came Second by Jessica Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

Geraldine.” Mission accomplished.
    It was late afternoon and I figured we had labored long enough for one day. We headed home for a game of tag with the hose, the thrill of picking one of my very own tomatoes, a big bowl of fresh cold water and a can of icy Budweiser. Cigarette number six, I feared, but I was in too good a mood to be very accusatory about it.
    We continued the pleasant evening by ordering our favorite pizza—sausage with extra cheese. I made myself a salad and filled Fargo’s bowl with dry food, which he ignored, knowing full well pizza was en route.
    Retiring to the living room, I clicked on the telly. One of the cable stations was featuring a Bio-Drama of the Woodchopper Woman whose photo I had seen in Cindy’s scandal sheet the other day. The thing that amazed me about such Bio-Dramas was not how bad they were, but how they existed at all. How on earth did the stations manage to collect so many pictures, so many relatives and neighbors and cops to be interviewed, in so short a time? Surely, they couldn’t keep files and film clips on everyone who ever went to jail or a mental facility! It was truly incredible. Of course we were going to watch it while we ate. Cindy would never know.
    It boiled down pretty much to what had been in the paper. According to neighbors, Virginia Leonard was the average American housewife, thought to be happily married, a good housekeeper and good mother, if somewhat overprotective of her two children. Her husband Jeff worked for an auditing firm and traveled frequently, but seemed to enjoy his wife and kids whenever he was home.
    “And then one afternoon, it all changed for the Leonards,” the commentator intoned ominously.
    A neighbor joined him on camera. “It had been a pleasant summer day,” she said. “A little girl over on Fourteenth Street was having a birthday party. My two kids were going and so were Elaine and Bobby Leonard.” The screen flashed photos of the plain young girl and the beautiful little boy.
    “I would have let my kids walk over to the party,” the neighbor continued, “But Virginia called and suggested she would take all four, if I would pick them up. That was typical. Virginia hated her kids to be anywhere without adult supervision. So that’s what we did. She took ’em and I picked them up after the party. I dropped them at the end of their driveway.”
    Her voice began to quaver.
    “I’ll never forgive myself. I dropped them off at their driveway, and those kids just walked up that driveway and right around the house to see their mother cutting up their father in the woodchopper. But I didn’t know. How could I have known? I had just backed the car out and turned toward home, and then I heard them screaming all the way down the block. I backed up at about ninety miles an hour. I don’t know how I did it. They were in the road holding each other and screaming. I jumped out and got my arms around them, asking them what on earth was wrong? They couldn’t even tell me, they just fell against me, sobbing.”
    The screen now featured a picture of Virginia and Jeff Leonard in happier days—a slender young woman, slightly taller than her husband, who was a stocky young man with light brown wavy hair and an easy grin. She held a baby. He clasped the hand of a little girl.
    Another neighbor next joined the interview. “I lived right across the street. A little earlier in the day I had been busy, and my then two-year-old Petey somehow unlatched the screen and got out of the house. He was always quite a little terror.” She smiled, remembering, as if it had been some sign of greatness to come.
    “When I realized it, I ran out just in time to see Jeff Leonard pull in his driveway, jump out of his car and run out into the street to pick up Petey. Jeff was laughing as he scooped Petey up. ‘Now, Cowboy, where do you think you’re going? You’re going right home to mama, that’s where! No more adventures for you today,