A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

kiss each of them in turn.
    “Mercedes, how good of you to come.” Mrs. Haines wiped her cheeks with a soggy tissue. “It must have been dreadful for you.”
    Choked, I could only nod.
    “Strangled and beaten, they said.” Her wet fingers mangled the tissue, and Mr. Haines put a large white hanky in her hand.
    “Who’d do that to Isca? Who? Why? She was a good girl. She wasn’t like any of those awful people you see on TV. Just a regular person. Good to Dad and me. I don’t understand it.”
    “Now, Mother, don’t.” Mr. Haines patted her shoulder and stepped away to make room for Parker.
    A towheaded little boy in shorts and a Portland Trail Blazers shirt ran in and hugged Mrs. Haines.
    “Do you have a minute?” Parker asked me.
    I nodded and he gestured toward the kitchen.
    The room was empty. We sat at the table and Parker exhaled a deep breath. “Finding Isca like that must have been terrible for you.”
    “I don’t know what I would have done if Andy hadn’t been with me.”
    “Why was he?”
    “I asked him.”
    “And he was okay with that?”
    “Not really. I guilted him with my cowardness.”
    “It’s not like Andy to be chivalrous.”
    “Well, he was there. That’s all I cared about.”
    A number of casserole dishes and plates of cookies filled the counters. Their smells clashed in the airless kitchen. While I tried to decide if it would be rude to open a window, Parker looked at his hands and then at me. “What do you know about this nine hundred business of Isca’s?”
    “What do you know?”
    “That it was a huge bone of contention in the family.”
    “Well, I wasn’t enabling her, that’s for sure.”
    “Huh?”
    “Nothing. Never mind. How did everyone find out?”
    “I haven’t a clue.”
    It was my turn to stall. On the other side of the pocket door separating the kitchen from the dining room footsteps stopped. I lowered my voice. “Well, she wanted to work out of her home and make some extra money.”
    I didn’t expect him to laugh, but he did. “She always did have a way with words.” He shook his head. “Do you think it’s what got her killed?”
    “I don’t know.”
    I might have told him about Isca’s phone message but his son ran in the room.
    “Hey, Champ.” Parker swung the boy up and I stood saying it was time for me to start back to town. We returned to the living room just as someone knocked on the door. Before anyone could get it, the door opened and Andy and Dominic came in.
    “Gramma!” Dominic ran to the couch and threw himself at Mrs. Haines. She caught him in a hug, pressing her cheek to the boy’s glossy head.
    Andy looked ill at ease as he came forward. “Betty.” He leaned to kiss her cheek.
    I took the moment to move toward a window . People in pain tore me apart, like fragile old lace.
    Betty’s gardens were full of old-fashioned flowers, some of which had started to bloom early, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather. Their perfume came through an open window and clashed with Campho Phenique in the warm room. Across the fence sat an old canvas lawn swing and a wooden picnic table. The scene should have been as homey as a Mountain Dew commercial. It wasn’t. We were all indelibly tainted with something ugly.
    Andy didn’t look good. He was pale and had smudges beneath his eyes. Though immaculately dressed, he didn’t hold himself as erect as usual. His shoulders seemed to stoop tiredly.
    I glanced at a clock on the mantle and eased toward the door. Garbo-like, I wanted to be alone. Andy was still talking with his former in-laws when we were all distracted by a woman with a tray of coffee cups. I declined. Like a kaleidoscope, the room shifted. People got up to stretch stiffened limbs. The bathroom door opened and closed; someone flushed the toilet. The screen door banged shut and a little girl demanded a drink of water.
    In the confusion, I inched through the door onto the covered porch. It had two wicker chairs separated by a small