Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly by Paula K. Perrin Read Free Book Online

brandy.
    Fran got the pan of gingerbread
and the bowl of whipping cream, and we had more of both.
    I was just about to ask her where
she’d gone when she said abruptly, “Well, I didn’t kill Andre, did
you?”
    “No.”
    Fran pivoted her wrist back and
forth, her silver medical alert bracelet swiveling on her wrist, the links
making a slithering sound.  “You know the statistics—it’s most likely to
be your nearest and dearest who do you in.”
    “But he didn’t have anyone
near and dear since Barry died.  Women were strictly a hobby.”
    “Don’t be bitter,” she
admonished.
    “I’m not.”
    “Yes, you are, and you should
do a better job of hiding it.  It’s a motive—”
    “What about you?”  I
pointed my finger at her.
    She batted it away.  “I take
men and sex a lot less seriously—”
    “Because you’ve had a lot
more of them,” I said.
    “Exactly.  You should try
it.”
    “Opportunities don’t exactly
abound—”
    “You just walk right on by
them and never notice.”
    Upstairs the newly re-christened
Bunny barked twice.
    “That’s not going to make him
popular,” I said.
    We both jumped when the kitchen
door creaked open and a man’s voice said, “Don’t you ever lock your
doors?”
    I froze in my chair.  Fran had
jumped up and grabbed the toaster, raising it above her head with both hands.
    “Gene Cudworthy, I’m going to
kill you!” I said, the hair still standing up on my neck.
    “Fran looks far more
dangerous,” he said, but I noticed he hadn’t even put an arm up to defend
himself.
    She laughed and put the toaster
back on the counter.  “You’re lucky you didn’t get a head full of bread
crumbs.”
    “I didn’t mean to scare you. 
I tapped on the back porch screen door, but you didn’t hear me, so I came on
through.”
    My heart stopped beating.  He’s
going to arrest Meg.  I said, “You can’t take her.  She’s only
nineteen.”
    “What?”
    I rubbed the back of my neck. 
“Meg’s innocent.”
    “Now why would you think I
was coming to arrest Meg?”  His quizzical blue eyes met mine.
    “You’re not?”
    “No.”
    “What did you come for?”
    “I saw Fran’s car
outside.”  He smoothed his moustache with one large hand and scrutinized
Fran.  “Now’s your chance to come clean, tell me why you left and where
you went.  Tomorrow this gets real serious.”
    Fran said, “Sit down,
Gene.”  She got a glass and put it in front of him.  I shoved the brandy
bottle toward him.  She got him a plate and fork and served him gingerbread.  I
scraped the bowl for the last of the whipped cream.
    He sank into a chair. 
“Thanks.”
    We all had brandy.  Mother was
going to be scandalized.
    “To absent friends,”
Fran said, raising her teacup.
    We all clinked and drank.
    Gene said, “I’m still waiting for
an explanation.”
    Fran’s bracelet began slithering
again.
    The two of them stared at each
other, each willing the other to back down.  It was more than a battle of
wills, though.  Embarrassed, I took the bowl and pan to the sink and began
washing them.  Total silence behind me.
    They’d had a brief affair while
Gene was married to wife #2.  Wife #3 looked a lot like Fran.  From the
electricity that filled the air, I’d say Fran had a shot at becoming #4.
    I dried the cake pan more
thoroughly than it had ever been dried before, and they still hadn’t spoken. 
Without turning around, I said, “It’s been a long day, and I’m
tired.”
    A chair scraped the floor.  Gene
said, “Tomorrow you both come down to the station.  I’ll want to hear the
truth.”
    “Don’t involve Liz,”
Fran said.
    “She better not be doing
anything but telling the truth tomorrow, including what she knows of your
activities tonight.  There’s such a charge as obstruction of justice, you
know.”
    “It’s a terrible thing what
political aspirations do to a person,” Fran said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “If you weren’t running