Suitable for Framing by Edna Buchanan Read Free Book Online

Peanut home?” I asked, wondering what I would say if he was. It would not be the first time I had chatted with somebody wanted by the police. Criminals are so eager to convince journalists of how unjustly accused and terribly misunderstood they are that it rarely occurs to them to do bodily harm to reporters. They are usually on their best behavior. However, the memory of bloodstained pavement was still too fresh for me to take Peanut’s explanation seriously, if indeed he had one.
    â€œMa!” the young mother-to-be yelled, her voice startlingly shrill.
    From behind her, a woman emerged from what had to be a bedroom. Skinny beneath the housecoat, she had thin-edged features under big pale-blue curlers in bangs of blond frizz that showed an inch and a half of dark roots. The toenails protruding from her cotton scuffs had been painted the same shade of blood red.
    â€œShe’s looking for Peanut.”
    The woman regarded me from behind sleepy eyes, plucked a coffee mug from the drainboard next to the sink, plodded to the coffeepot on the four-burner stove, and poured herself a cup without heating it first.
    She slumped into a kitchen chair, downed the coffee like it was whiskey, then fished what looked like the last cigarette out of a crumpled pack of menthols, lit it, inhaled, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
    â€œThe police have already been here. They were here when I got home from work.” Her voice was husky from sleep; the slight accent sounded Cuban.
    â€œI think she’s from the state,” the girl offered, as though I wasn’t there. “Probation or HRS.”
    â€œNo,” I said, offering my card, “I’m a reporter, Britt Montero from the Miami News .” I looked around, disappointed. “He’s not here?”
    The mother shook her head, trying without success to pat into submission the blond frizz that stuck out on one side. The other was mashed flat as though she had slept on it.
    â€œI don’t know why everybody’s bothering me about him now,” she said, annoyed. “I told ’em. I warned ’em. Nothing I can do for him anymore. I done all I could for him.”
    â€œWho?” I asked. “Who’d you tell?”
    â€œEverybody—the cops, the school, social workers, the juvenile court. I told ’em all. I called the police on ’im myself, a coupla times. They never did anything!” she said accusingly.
    The hand holding the cigarette toyed with her coffee cup. “I raised these two alone. My daughter here, never any trouble; but him—”
    The teenager couldn’t help but look pleased, bent head hiding a smug smile, though from the looks of things she was no potential Mother Teresa herself. She was now seated, her unfinished foot propped on a kitchen chair, bending with some effort as she concentrated on painting the last pale nail.
    â€œBoys are nothing but trouble,” her mother said bitterly. “Boys and men. He’s messed up in the head. Won’t take his medication. Did good in computers in school for a while, but then … I moved here to get ’im away from the neighborhood where he always got in trouble. So what’s the first thing he did? Got in trouble again.”
    â€œWhat about his dad?”
    â€œWhat about ’im?”
    â€œDoes he help, did he try to straighten out your son?”
    She glared, eyes narrowing. “First time I see his ass in this neighborhood, I call the police. Look, I work on my feet, long hours, cocktail waitress at the Velvet Swing. I did the best I knew how, went everywhere I could for help. You wanna know how many times I sat in juvenile court after working all night? He was warned it was his last chance three times by the same judge. I begged ’em not to let him come home. But no, it’s out of my hands now. They say he’s in big trouble this time. Well, what took ’em so long to get excited? I coulda told ’em.