Aurora 08 - Poppy Done To Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

delicately.
    Bitch.
    “Yes, and if my sister-in-law hadn’t been murdered, I wouldn’t dream of disturbing him,” I said somewhat less sweetly.
    A long silence.
    “He has his cell phone,” Emily admitted. “Let me give you that number.”
    “Thank you so much,” I said with no expression at all. Why couldn’t I have dated a vet, or a bartender, or a farmer? Why had I dated a cop and a minister before I met my first and now deceased husband, Martin Bartell?
    Who shows up in emergencies? Policemen and preachers!
    I repeated the number to make sure I’d gotten it right, then bid Emily good-bye. I knew she would set the drums beating to alert the Women of the Church to the imminence of a funeral meal. Emily always did her duty.
    I took a deep breath and called Aubrey before I could change my mind.
    I don’t like cell phones, and I almost never turn mine on; to me, it’s an emergency tool, like a car jack or a rifle. But today I was really glad our priest had one.
    He said he’d be at the house in thirty minutes.

Chapter Two

    Aubrey made it in forty minutes, and he was wearing his black shirt and dog collar when he rang the doorbell. Aubrey had had very dark hair when I met him, and he was graying heavily now. He’d shaved his mustache the year before, which had changed his appearance drastically.
    And he’d gained a few pounds, even though he played golf, tennis, and ran three times a week.
    Still, Aubrey was an attractive man, and Emily was very watchful around the single female members of the congregation—and some of the married ones, for that matter.

    Take Poppy, for example. Emily had always been markedly cold toward Poppy, who had laughed it off.
    I took a ragged breath and hugged Aubrey out of sheer thankfulness for his presence. Then I took him into the kitchen.
    Somehow, the appearance of the priest gave weight and substance to the fact of Poppy’s death. If the priest showed up, it had to be true. Aubrey’s arrival was both a shock and a relief.
    I wandered in and out of the kitchen, keeping a sharp eye on John. He looked good, considering the horror of the day. He was practically vibrating with worry over John David’s absence. I thought he would not feel the impact of Poppy’s death until he could be sure of his son’s whereabouts and safety.
    John had to be aware that we were all thinking that until John David showed up to establish his innocence, he was the chief suspect in his wife’s murder.
    Even John had to be thinking that.
    Where the hell could John David be? I walked through the kitchen, the dining room, the formal living room, back through the family room. Then I made the circuit again. I noticed my pattern was irritating the hell out of Avery, but that was just his bad luck. It helped me think.
    If I were John David, and I’d left work early, and my wife was busy, and my son was safely at his aunt’s house ... I’d go visit my mistress. The answer popped into my mind with the air of finality your subconscious reserves for sure things. Whom had John David been seeing lately? I could feel my upper lip wrinkle with faint disgust at even considering such a question. I made myself comb through the half-heard rumors.
    There was Patty Cloud, who’d worked for my mother for several years before becoming Mother’s second in command. I’d never cared for Patty, who was a cold and manipulative woman. There was Romney Burns, the daughter of a murdered detective in the Lawrenceton Police Department. There was Linda Pocock Erhardt, whose bridesmaid I’d been; Linda, divorced for many years, had two daughters in high school, and I knew she should be at work today. She was a nurse for my doctor, Pincus Zelman.
    I felt much better now that I had a mission. I slipped out of my mother’s house and into my car and began touring the town. I’d never driven through Lawrenceton hunting down love nests before, and I felt queasy about doing it now. I know I’m not such a wonderful moral