A Slice of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

statement that she ascertained the victim was dead when she got there.”
    “She has a medical degree, does she?”
    I started to answer when Bob rose from his chair, instructing me to follow. “My client came here of her own free will, and I won’t allow her to be bullied.”
    “Sit down, counselor,” Kevin snapped. My onetime boyfriend was gone, replaced by the chief of police he’d become. I’d never had any reason to see him in his official role, and I wasn’t enjoying it very much now.
    “You’ll be civil?” Bob asked.
    “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”
    “And please address my client as Mrs. Swift from now on,” Bob instructed him.
    There was a slight eye roll before Kevin nodded, and we all sat down again.
    “Now, Mrs. Swift,” he said with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice, “tell me about the events on the night of December twenty-seventh of last year.”
    Before I could answer, Bob asked, “What does that have to do with her discovery of the body?”
    “It was the night of the Harvest Festival,” Kevin said. “Your client and the murder victim had a pretty heated confrontation in public, and two weeks later he’s dead. It’s a legitimate line of questioning.”
    “It may be, but my client and I haven’t had time to confer about the night in question. I’d appreciate it if you’d limit your line of queries to last night’s events.”
    “Yeah, well, I’d appreciate a straight answer,” Kevin said. “You’re not making this any easier on yourself; Eleanor you know that, don’t you?”
    “That’s it,” Bob said. “We’re leaving.”
    Kevin shook his head in obvious disgust, but he didn’t make any moves to stop us. I held in my shaking until we got outside.
    “That was pretty unpleasant,” I said.
    Bob laughed. “That? It was nothing. Just a little cat and mouse. We’re just getting started.”
    “Oh, boy,” I said. “I can hardly wait. What do we do now?”
    Bob looked surprised by the question. “There’s nothing we can do. Don’t talk to anyone about anything involving this case—especially the chief—without me by your side. Understand?”
    “I guess so. Is that it, then? We just wait?”
    “Despite the impression your former boyfriend might have just given, he’s a decent police officer. I have every confidence he’ll get to the bottom of this.”
    “And in the meantime, am I just supposed to sit around and wait?”
    As Bob opened the door for me, he said, “I can’t tell you how to act, but in my opinion, that’s exactly what you should do.”
     
    Bob dropped me off at my house, pleading an impending court date that he hadn’t been able to postpone. I went inside, changed from the dress I was wearing back into my more familiar blue jeans and T-shirt, and tried to decide what to do. As I walked around downstairs, I marveled again at how much the house had changed since Joe and I had first bought it as newlyweds. Over the years before we found it, most of the Arts and Crafts style in the bungalow had been buried under layers of paint and outdated carpets until it was nearly unrecognizable. I thought my new husband had lost his mind when he insisted that there was beauty under all that mess, but I was young, in love, and willing to walk through fire for him, so I gladly signed the mortgage papers right alongside him. It had taken us seven years of hard work and a great deal of imagination, but the results were indeed spectacular. Lustrous quarter-sawn oak was everywhere, ecstatic to be freed from its painted bonds. Rich, mellow wood with fine, black-lined grain filled the place, from the built-in bookcases to the floors to the ceiling beams. It was cozy, a home worth coming back to every day, but it lacked one thing that I sorely needed: my husband.
    I picked up a framed picture of the two of us standing in front of a fireplace. We were smiling and laughing in the foreground, with the cabin interior of the place we loved to rent at Hungry Mother State Park