Throw a Monkey Wrench (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 1) by Karen Chester Read Free Book Online Page A

while he’s away.”
    Emma lifted her eyebrows. “Sean will be out
as soon as the police realize he has nothing to do with the murder.”
    “Oh, yeah, sure. Of course he will. Sean
would never kill someone.” But his voice held a trace of hesitation as his gaze
slid away from Emma’s.
    “Larry?” she prompted, suddenly uneasy
about what he wasn’t saying. “Is there more?”
    “I’m sure it’s nothing, but Sean and Tony
Barnet had an argument on the phone yesterday afternoon.”
    “An argument about what?”
    “Some unpaid bill, I believe. I heard Sean
yelling from his office around five o’clock. The door was shut, but everyone in
the reception area could hear him shouting. Then he came steaming out, looking
ready to blow a gasket. I asked him what was going on, and he yelled ‘Tony
Barnet isn’t getting away with this. I’m going to make him pay.’ Then he stomped
straight past me into the workshop, and a few minutes later he took off in his
pickup truck.”
    This was bad. Maybe Sean had grabbed a tool
out of his toolbox, driven out to Tony’s house, and somehow ended up killing
him. And there were other witnesses besides Larry to the argument over the
phone—the receptionist, customers, and workers. The police would eventually get
their statements, if they hadn’t already. She had been convinced that Sean
would be freed very soon, but now the case against him looked increasingly
dire.
    The thought depressed her, and she made for
her car, anxious to get away.
    “Hey, I thought you wanted someone to look
at your car,” Larry called out as he trotted behind her.
    “I, um, I’ll come back some other time.”
She opened her car door and slid in. “It probably makes more sense to drop it
off in the morning, right?”
    “Yeah.” He eyed her hatchback, and his
expression seemed to suggest it was a piece of junk. “Just warning you, might
take a few days to fix.”
    Emma held back a sigh. Could she afford a
rental? Maybe she could borrow her dad’s car; he’d sprained an ankle and was
unable to drive for a week or more. She’d ask him when she got home.
    “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Larry nodded goodbye and stood back before
she pulled off. As she drove away, she glanced in her rearview mirror.
Silhouetted against the setting sun, the workshop was a dark rectangular
shadow. She couldn’t see Larry at all. He must be a fast mover to have vanished
so quickly.
    ***
    The scent of spicy
chicken greeted Emma as she walked in the door. Home was a plain, unpretentious
three-bedroom house where she’d been born and raised. There were azalea bushes
out the front, a wide deck out the back, and plenty of shelves inside to house
her dad’s vast book collection.
    Her dad was in the kitchen, limping between
the stove and the sink. His wire-rimmed glasses, button down plaid shirt tucked
into his pants, and neat salt-and-pepper hair emphasized his calm,
mild-mannered demeanor. After teaching history for decades, he’d recently become
a high school counselor.
    “Hi, sweetie.” Andrew Cassidy paused to
peck her on the cheek before shuffling to the stove to check his sizzling pan.
“Chicken burritos tonight.”
    “Sounds great.”
    Since she’d moved back home she’d gained
five extra pounds due to her dad’s cooking. She wasn’t much of a cook herself,
and she hadn’t expected him to provide her with meals, but he’d surprised her
with his cooking skills. While Emma’s mom was alive, Frances had always ruled
the kitchen, and Andrew had been happy with the traditional male role of
sticking to barbeques. When her mother had died, Emma had assumed her dad would
mostly eat out, which he had for the first year of being a widower, but now he
was an accomplished home cook.
    “I’ll just get changed into something more
comfortable,” Emma said.
    She entered her bedroom, the same room
she’d had as a kid, and dropped her bag on the bed with a sigh. It had been a long,
long day. She kicked off her