A Clean Kill Read Online Free PDF Page A

locked the door and set the alarm. And while I was doing each of thosethings, the muscular stranger at the Mandrake Club stood silent watch from the back shadows of my imagination.
    As I plopped into a chair and reached for the remote control, I started to feel a little embarrassed by my reaction to the hollow-cheeked stranger. I glanced up at the blank stare of the big beachside window that now showed only night.
    I examined my pale reflection, then shook my head at the two-dimensional ghost in the window. “What a wuss.”

Four
    I could smell whisky on her breath.
    Sheri Baneberry’s smiling features looked blurred, like a smudged photograph with a thumbprint over the face. Her blonde tresses poked and twisted this way and that, I guessed, from riding with her window down. Out in the driveway, over my client’s shoulder, I could see some kind of sea-green Japanese SUV. The motor was running, and I could see a dark human form inside the vehicle.
    Two hours earlier, just before five o’clock Tuesday afternoon, Sheri had called my office to say she’d gotten her mother’s medical records from her dad. I’d offered to stay late and go over the records with her, but Sheri hadn’t wanted to deal with rush-hour traffic in Mobile. Instead, she had suggested that she could bring them to my house, and I had agreed.
    Now I had a drunk blonde on my front porch.
    “Come in. You must be cold.” My client was wearing shorts and a sleeveless turtleneck on November 30.
    “I never get cold.” She brushed by and left me standing alone in the entry hall.
    I thought,
Half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s has that effect
.
    I followed and found Sheri standing in the living room. She held out a brown accordion file folder. “Here it is.”
    I took the folder and thanked her.
    Sheri said, “Swelcome,” then walked over and sat in an upholstered chair facing the beach windows. She waved her left hand at the folder. “Whatcha looking for?”
    I sat on the sofa and dropped the folder on the coffee table. Sheri wasn’t in any shape to help me go through the file, and I wasn’t in any mood to try to make her. I lifted the edge of the folder and peeked inside at my bedtime reading. “I’m not sure yet. I just wanted to go over the records before I see Dr. Adderson tomorrow. See if anything jumps out at me.”
    Sheri kicked off her sandals and put her bare feet up on the coffee table. “I can tell ya what Dad’s lawyers said.”
    I waited while she looked around the room. “Okay.”
    “You got anything to drink? I had a bourbon before I came over, and just one drink always gives me a headache.”
    If she’d had one drink, it was in one hell of a big glass. I said, “I don’t drink.”
    “You drank at B.J.’s on Thanksgiving.”
    “I’m turning over a new leaf. What’d your father’s lawyers say about the medical records?”
    Sheri Baneberry sighed. I, clearly, was an inadequate host. “They said Mom was doing good all afternoon, and then she just got sick and died.”
    “That’s some kind of in-depth analysis. They must be very proud.”
    Sheri shrugged. “They’ve got a paralegal who’s a nurse.”
    “That would explain it.”
    “Listen. You want me to hang around and go over the records with you? I got a friend out in the car, but she’ll wait if you need me.”
    “No, that’s fine. We can talk later. Just tell me this …”
    Someone knocked on the front door, and Sheri said, “Must be Bobbi. Guess she got tired of waiting.”
    I stood and walked to the foyer. Sheri followed.
    When I opened the door, Bobbi stepped into the house and stopped in the entry hall halfway between Sheri and me. Bobbi was a tall, athletic brunette, who wouldn’t have looked out of place as a girls’ tennis coach at any high school in the country.
    Sheri introduced us, and Bobbi Mactans said, “Hi.”
    I motioned in the direction of the living room. “Would you like to come in? We’ll just be a couple more minutes.”
    Bobbi peered