To Kill a Matzo Ball (A Deadly Deli Mystery) by Delia Rosen Read Free Book Online Page A

perhaps.”
    Well, he sure put me in my place—making a point of using the slightly French-inflected word restaurateurs . Maybe I deserved it. I probably seemed like a snotty intellectual feminist to him, which I sort of was.
    “What about the money? Any idea where it’s coming from?” I asked.
    “Cash doesn’t leave a paper trail,” he said. “You know the local economy. We’re looking into businesses where cash can be skimmed.”
    There was a thoughtful silence, and I flinched as he slid a beefy paw into his jacket. I was prepared to hurl hot coffee in his face. But he didn’t produce a shiv or garrote. He was holding a five-by-seven photograph of a flyer. He handed it to me. The original document was yellow and pinned to a tree. It said in a bold inkjet typeface:
    THE U.S. IS FOR US
ARYANS ONLY
R VOICES WILL BE HERD
SHOCK SHOOT SLAWTER
    “I assume the typos are mistakes,” I said.
    He looked at me as if to ask “What typos?”
    “I mean, unless it’s a creative flourish,” I added quickly, turning the photo so he could see and pointing. “‘Heard’ as in audio, ‘herd’ as in a bunch of cattle. It could be a metaphor. And maybe ‘slawter’ is a service mark. I know. You can use it in commerce and see who sues. Then you’ve got them.”
    He continued to stare with practiced patience. I didn’t imagine he met very many normal or well-composed people during his investigations: either they were bad guys or victims. I was anxious and babbling, but I couldn’t help myself. As much as you hear about people hating, as much as your relatives pounded it into your skull, it’s different when it’s in your backyard—and potentially in your storefront. It turns your knees and bowels to water. You just want to run. Or flow, whichever gets you away best under the radar.
    “I sincerely do not know about any of that,” Bowe-Pitt remarked. “We found eleven of these flyers two weeks ago—”
    “Eleven? Isn’t that the number of states in the Confederacy?”
    “It’s also the number of trees located in Hadley Park, out of view of security cameras,” Bowe-Pitt told me.
    Okay, I thought. I will say nothing more.
    “We have no leads on who might have put those up, other than a strand of thread that was attached to one of the nailheads,” he went on. “We believe it’s from a workman’s glove, cotton with a trace of plastic coating. Electrical worker, perhaps. We’re looking into it.”
    “That’s a pretty impressive deduction from a piece of thread.”
    “We have a real good lab in Memphis,” he said. “Of course, it could also mean a Nashville Electric worker pulled over to relieve himself and happened to lean on the tree. We’re looking at gloves from workers on this afternoon’s assignment sheet as well.”
    “You ought to wear gloves while you check those gloves,” I said.
    The agent ignored my quip.
    “I checked with the NPD,” he went on. “They will be leaving an officer posted outside tonight. I suggest, if it’s possible, that you sleep here. Your home property is invasible.”
    My home property is invasible? What the hell kind of inflated thought process came up with that? Probably the same linguistic moron who told weather forecasters to refer to the afternoon as “afternoon hours” and humidity as “humidity values,” as well as turning signs to “signage” and minutes to “minutage” and other idiotic neologisms.
    Now I was babbling inside instead of out. I shut my brain up and listened.
    “All right,” I said.
    “None of this is to say that we know for certain you were the target,” he went on.
    That’s what “knowing” is, I mentally corrected him. Being “certain.” I told my mind, again, to put a ball-gag in it.
    He plucked a business card from that little leather wallet, which seemed lost in his fleshy hand. He laid it on the counter, beside the photograph of the flyer, and gave it two taps of his finger. He probably would have handed it to me if I