Murder Crops Up by Lora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

that,” Bruno broke in. “You will be involved in our investigation.” He looked around at the steady stream of gardeners, leaving after having given their names and addresses to the police. “Many people will be involved.” His eyes sharpened on Carlotta, who stood with a few others, watching as the evidence specialists sifted through the dirt. Lois was at the gate, waving her petition at the departing gardeners. Bruno sighed. “It will not be easy, evidently.” His gaze came back to mine. “Be very careful, Liz. You seem to have at least one enemy.’’
    A few hours earlier, I would have laughed about Carlotta as any kind of effective enemy. But now I had to wonder. How far would she go to get me into trouble?
     

Chapter 6
     
    Bridget reached across the table and angled the chipped spout of her big teapot, pouring a stream of fragrant jasmine tea into my cup. “Incredible,” she said finally.
    “Yeah. Count yourself lucky you left when you did.”
    She shivered. “I wish I’d stayed to help you out. If I’d been with you, there’d have been no question—”
    “I’m not really under suspicion, any more than anyone else there. I bet most of the gardeners were in my position—working alone, no one able to vouch for them every minute. In fact, Rita’s death probably was an accident.”
    Bridget shook her head. “I don’t know. The tension there was pretty thick this morning. With Rita and Lois both throwing their weight around—”
    “Surely you don’t think Lois would do this?” Usually, Bridget is the person who defends everyone’s right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
    “I think Lois might be capable of shoving Rita if she lost her temper.” Bridget spoke after taking a moment to think. “But I would be surprised if Rita didn’t push her back, and frankly, I would expect Rita to do more damage. She’s—she was—a hefty woman.”
    “So you think it was an accident, and the person responsible got cold feet and hasn’t come forward.”
    “Yes, and that doesn’t exactly sound like Lois. She would be screaming away about it, blaming Rita for everything.”
    “Maybe.” It was my turn to shiver. “She might have been too shocked to speak or make sense. Committing a violent act can be so surprising.”
    “Stop kicking yourself about something that happened years ago.” Bridget’s voice was stern, but she patted my hand. “What you did wasn’t violence so much as self-defense. There’s a difference between trying to save your life and overindulging in a temper tantrum. When are you going to let that old history go?”
    She pushed the plate of cookies closer, as if they could, lotus-like, aid me in forgetting that I had once aimed a gun, pulled the trigger, sent a bullet burrowing through flesh, blood vessels, bone. The act had probably saved my life; my husband had been stopped before he could finish teaching me whatever lesson it was I couldn’t seem to learn. He didn’t die—then, at least. I went to jail, where I was, paradoxically, free of him. I got a divorce without the usual peril attending separation from a batterer; Tony couldn’t get at me to make me permanently sorry. And then after my parole, I eluded him for years, while I tried to make his looming threat fill less of my psyche.
    No matter how far I came in this exercise, he still took up a dark corner in my head, small but potent, like a black hole waiting to suck everything into itself. His eventual death at someone else’s hands had only decreased the darkness, not removed it entirely.
    I took one of the cookies, and Bridget smiled in relief.
    The counter behind us was covered with cookies, their sweet aroma filling the air. The Montrose house was relatively quiet, unusual for a Saturday afternoon. The big round table in the kitchen’s bay window had been recently tidied and set with clean place mats and the tea things. In the living room, Moira hummed to herself while involved in her latest