A Sinister Sense Read Online Free PDF

mean?”
    “Nothing!” John sauntered over to the door. “Nothing at all. But if I were you, I’d be careful who I trust around here.”
    He was out of the door before she could answer.
    Mrs. Riley sniffed. “You never know who you’re dealing with these days, that’s what I say.” She trotted off down the aisles, leaving Clara fuming behind the counter. Everyone was so quick to judge. The same thing that had happened to Molly was happening now to Rick. She hoped fervently that Dan would find out who killed that poor man and put an end to all the speculation before some real damage was done.
    She was still seething about the injustice of it all when she arrived home that evening. Jessie had fixed a shrimp salad for her, and she ate it in the kitchen, while her mother poured a couple of glasses of wine.
    “I saw on the news that your friend at the hardware store is in trouble,” she said as she sat down opposite Clara at the kitchen table.
    Clara swallowed a mouthful of lettuce before answering her. “He’s not in trouble. Someone dumped a dead body in his truck, that’s all.”
    Jessie raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “You don’t find that unusual?”
    Clara regarded her mother with a jaundiced eye. For the past year Jessie had been striving to regain some of her youthful looks. She’d had her hair cut and dyed in a short, flip-up style with highlights. She spent numerous hours at the gym and bought her clothes with a keen eye for fashion. Tonight she wore a red, low-cut top and white pants that clung to her hips. It was obvious to Clara that her mother was phasing out the mourning period and was ready to move on with her life. The thought both pleased and worried her. Jessie was apt to be impulsive at times, and not always discreet. In a town the size of Finn’s Harbor, very little escaped the grapevine.
    “I think,” Clara said slowly, “that Rick’s truck was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he’d killed that man, why on earth would he leave the body out in the open for everyone to see? “
    “Perhaps he was waiting for the right moment to get rid of it.” She paused. “You know that they think they’ve found the murder weapon, I suppose.”
    Clara almost choked on her dinner roll. “No, I didn’t know that.”
    “It was found in the bushes alongside the parking lot between the bowling alley and the driving range.”
    The voices.
They were echoing in her head. Whispering, as they always did, insistent and disturbing. She shut them off before she could make sense of the words. “I have to call Stephanie.” She glanced at the clockas she pushed her chair back. “She’ll be wondering where I am.”
    Her cousin must have been waiting for her nightly call, as she answered on the first ring. “Clara? Did you see the news? It’s all over the TV.”
    “I haven’t seen it yet.” Clara’s fingers tightened on her cell. “Mom told me they’d found the murder weapon.”
    “The police
think
it’s the murder weapon. It was found in the parking lot of the bowling alley.”
    “So I heard.”
    “It looks as if the dead guy was killed there.”
    “Probably.”
    “While Rick was there.”
    Clara briefly closed her eyes. “Just because the body ended up in his truck doesn’t mean he killed the guy. Whoever killed him must have dumped the body in there to get rid of it.”
    “Funny that Rick didn’t see it when he drove home.”
    “He probably didn’t look in the back. It was dark when he went home.”
    “You know everyone is going to think he did it, don’t you?”
    “More than likely. I have faith in Dan and his guys, though. They’ll find the real murderer.”
    “They don’t even know the name of the victim. They had Rick down at the station again tonight to see if he knew the guy. Deanne Summers interviewed him on the way out. Rick said he’d never seen the guy before.”
    The voices again.
Only one this time. She tried toignore it, but the words sounded clearly in