2 A Deadly Beef Read Online Free PDF Page B

that much, but
there were no hard feelings by the time I left him.  We decided to stay
friends, and I still can’t believe that someone killed him."
    "We’re
all pretty shocked by it," Moose said, and then he asked, "Since
you were the one who cut Wally loose, have you been able to replace him yet, or
did you already have someone else waiting in the wings?"
    Penny
gave us a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat proud. 
"I’m too busy sampling the field to settle on just one guy,"
she said.
    Moose’s
phone rang, and he excused himself for a second.  For a man who proclaimed
his hatred for new technologies, it hadn’t kept him from getting a cell
phone.
    While
he stepped away to have a little privacy, I looked at our suspect.  Penny
could have been telling the truth about her version of the breakup, but for
some reason, I doubted it.  She wasn’t homely by any means, but
neither would anyone ever come right out and call her pretty.  If
she’d had a more vibrant personality, I was sure that it wouldn’t
matter nearly as much, but there was a constant underlying mean streak in
everything she said, and I was willing to bet that Moose’s version of
what had happened between Penny and Wally was closer to the truth than the
story she was trying to sell us at the moment.
    "I’m
curious.  Penny, do you happen to have an alibi for when Wally
died?"
    "I
haven’t even heard the time of death yet," Penny said. 
"Myrtle Ransom told me about his murder half an hour ago, but she was
fuzzy on the details."  Was her folding growing louder?  It
appeared that she was slapping the plastic pieces so hard together that I’d
be amazed if something didn’t break soon.
    "It
was between midnight and noon today," I said.
    "That’s
a pretty big range to account for," Penny said.  "I
can’t believe that it just happened a few hours ago."
    "Or
much earlier," I corrected her.  "Do you have anyone who might
have been with you during any of those hours?"  I was asking her
point blank if she’d had male company the night before, as much to get
her reaction to the question as the answer itself.
    "From
midnight to nine, I was in bed, alone.  I got dressed, ate breakfast, and
then came in to work.  I’ve been here all day, but unfortunately, I
don’t have anyone to vouch for me for much of that time.  Not that
it matters.  I didn’t do it."
    I
wasn’t sure what to say to that when Moose returned from his telephone
call and asked softly, "I’m curious, Penny.  When was the last
time you saw Wally?"
    "It
was yesterday afternoon," she said, though she was clearly unhappy about
sharing the information with us.
    "And
where exactly were you?"
    Penny
looked at him angrily, and then she finally said, "We were downtown in
front of The Clothes Horse."
    What
was Moose doing?  Did he have some information that I wasn’t privy
to myself?
    "Would
you say that it was a friendly conversation?" my grandfather asked her.
    "You
obviously already know what happened, or you wouldn’t be asking
me," Penny said.  "Okay.  I confess.  We were
arguing, but it had nothing to do with us dating, or breaking up, for that
matter."
    "Then
what was it about?" Moose asked.
    "I
left my favorite sweater at his place, and he claimed that he couldn’t
find it," she said.  "I had a hunch he was hanging onto it as
some kind of trophy, and I wasn’t going to stand for that.  So
what?  We argued.  It happens.  Now, if you’ll both excuse
me, I’ve got work to do."  Penny shot a look at my T-shirt and
said snidely, "If you ever get tired of that stain, bring it in and
I’ll take care of it for you."
    She
disappeared in back after she said it, and Moose jerked his head toward the
outside as he looked at me. 
    I followed
him out, and then I asked him, "First, how did you find out about the
argument between Penny and Wally, and second, why didn’t you tell me
about it?"
    "Take
it easy, Victoria.  I just found out myself.  I called Hank