Nun the Wiser (A Deadly Habit Cozy Mystery Book 2) by Morgana Best Read Free Book Online Page B

enjoyed a meeting with either of the two cops.
    Still, he was an officer of the law, and I didn’t think I could hide from him. It would be better to get whatever he wanted over with. I hurried to my room and pulled on jeans and a tee shirt. I then went to the front door, hurrying down the narrow staircase.
    When I pulled open the door, the cop had turned around, apparently giving up. He was halfway back to his car when he turned.
    “Hello, Ms. Tyler,” the cop said.
    “It’s Taylor,” I said, for the umpteenth time. How could he catch crooks when he couldn’t even get my name straight?
    “Mind if I come in?”
    “Sure.” I stepped back to allow him to pass me.
    “Have you just woken up?” Sergeant Barnes asked in an accusing tone. He checked his watch. “It’s almost ten.”
    “It’s my day off,” I said, suppressing the desire to go ahead and shut the door in his face.
    The cop just shrugged and stepped inside. He followed me into the back room behind the shop.
    “Have a seat,” I said, waving my hand toward the couch. “Mind if I make coffee? I get a caffeine deficient headache if I don’t get some into me quick, as soon as I wake up.” I realized I was babbling, but I didn’t care. I switched on the coffee machine before he answered.
    I turned back to him, leaning against the countertop, while inhaling the heavenly aroma of the coffee. “What’s going on?”
    “Well, the family, Mrs. Sutton’s family, they’re really pushing us to find the perpetrator.”
    I nodded. “I thought you said it was a fall down the stairs?”
    “Well, that’s what it looked like to me at first, but the family said otherwise. I guess you know about the husband who died some time back?”
    I nodded. Mrs. Sutton’s husband had been a famous player in AFL way back in the early days. He was still talked about these days. His name had been Bert Sutton, and he had made quite a name for himself, having played for twelve years.
    “Well this has gotten out a bit. The family doesn’t live around here, not anymore. They all moved to Victoria when they got old enough, the kids and that, but the story of Mrs. Sutton being found dead has been picked up. Sports blogs and all that,” Barnes said with obvious distaste. “I don’t go for the internet much, but this thing is picking up steam, and we’re getting pressured on both sides. There’s only two of us here, you know.”
    “Where is your partner?” I asked as I poured coffee into my cup. “Would you like some coffee?”
    Barnes shook his head and screwed up his nose. “He’s working on another lead.”
    I sat opposite him, holding my mug in two hands, watching the soft winding line of steam rising from the hot liquid.
    “I’m just doing some follow up. Some questions.”
    I nodded.
    “You were going to see Mrs. Sutton about some antiques?”
    “Not antiques as such,” I said. “Second hand furniture.”
    “But she called you, and mentioned something?”
    “About the nuns,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t like that answer.
    Barnes sighed, and ran a finger through his mustache. Nevertheless, he didn’t respond, but nodded and wrote down something on the small pad of paper he had resting on his knee. “Right, anything else?”
    “I went over and she was dead. The front door was locked; the back door wasn’t. I went in and found her by the back door, holding Rosary beads.”
    “And she wasn’t Catholic, you said?”
    “No,” I said. “Definitely not. She was Protestant. She always used to go to the church opposite the vet clinic on the main road.”
    The cop nodded and wrote some more. “Well, I gotta say, we got some prints there, and we took yours so we didn’t spend any time going after you, and we found some of yours there, on the back door and stuff, but we found a partial print on the Rosary beads, that didn’t belong to you or Mrs. Sutton. Now of course it could have been someone else, from before the death.”
    “The murderer?”
    Barnes