Tragic Toppings by Jessica Beck Read Free Book Online Page A

light to let us see, and full dark is still half an hour away. You should try this walk when it’s pitch-black. That would really give you the willies.”
    “Are you saying you’ve never been afraid here before?” Grace asked. “Not even when we were younger?”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” I admitted. “You know my imagination, but if I jumped at every shadow, I’d never make it home.”
    I glanced around and tried to see the darkened park through Grace’s eyes. It probably did look a little spooky if you didn’t know the shapes behind the shadows. Besides, her folks had put so many fears about the night in her head, it was amazing she’d even walk home with me now that we were both grown.
    “Look over there,” I said as I pointed to a cluster of bushes. “What do you see?”
    “I can just make out a maniac with a knife,” she said. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was exaggerating, or being completely honest with me, but I assumed she was telling me the truth.
    “You’re looking at it the wrong way,” I said as I pointed to the outline. “If you look carefully, you’ll see that it’s really just a fat old man with a butterfly net chasing a moth.”
    She frowned as she peered into the darkness. “I guess I can see that.”
    After a few more steps, Grace pointed to another shadow. “Surely that’s scary. It’s clearly a man with a machine gun.”
    I laughed. “Funny, that’s not my take on it at all. I see a woman with a pool cue trying to make a tough shot, and from the way she’s standing, she doesn’t have a chance.”
    “You’re too much,” Grace said. She pointed again, and I saw that she was motioning in the direction of the Patriot Tree. “Tell me that doesn’t look like someone’s hanging from the branches.”
    I froze as I took in the tree and its surroundings. “Grace, call 911.”
    “Why? What’s wrong?”
    I looked at it carefully, but as we got closer, there was no mistaking it. “That’s no shadow, Grace. There really is a body hanging there.”

 
    CHAPTER 4
    As Grace dialed the number on her telephone, I started walking with dread toward one of my favorite places in the park. The Patriot Tree was a living testament to the loyalty of our ancestors, and a stark reminder of the way they treated traitors in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. It was a place of comfort for me, but there was nothing comfortable or reassuring about it tonight. As I approached, I couldn’t tell the sex of the victim, let alone guess who it might be. The only time I’d ever seen anything hanging from its branches before had been when local high school kids had hung a stuffed effigy of the principal there as a prank, but it was getting more obvious by the moment that this was no dummy. What a horrible way to die.
    I was getting nearly close enough to see who was there when Grace grabbed my arm. “Suzanne, what do you think you’re doing?”
    “I need to see who it is,” I said. It could easily be one of my friends there, or even my ex-husband. Whoever it ended up being, I had to know so I could start dealing with it.
    “We need to wait for the police,” she replied.
    “We can just as easily wait near the tree.” I looked at her and saw the sheer terror on her face, and I wondered briefly why I wasn’t feeling the same thing myself yet. For whatever reason, I seemed calmer than I ever would have guessed. I suppose that it wasn’t real to me at that point. When I saw the body close enough to recognize it, I had a feeling that would change. And then another reason struck me, one that added a sense of urgency to my actions. “Grace, you can stay here if you’d like, I completely understand, but I’m going to see if whoever’s hanging there needs our help. For all we know, they may not be dead.”
    “But they aren’t moving,” she said, her voice almost a whimper.
    “Not that we can see, but that doesn’t mean that whoever is hanging there is really dead. Grace, what if there’s