Caught Redhanded Read Online Free PDF Page A

If so, he didn’t look dirty or smelly to me. In fact, he looked pretty good to me. An adorable little girl with blond ringlets grinned from a frame that had been knocked over. A niece? A friend’s child? A couple who must be her father and stepmother sat in a rather rigid studio portrait. Beside them a ceramic cat that was washing an extended back leg lay toppled on its side.
    On the floor, beside a stone cat sitting with his tail curled about his paws, lay a picture, facedown. Much as I was dying to see the photo since you never know what might be a clue, I didn’t touch it. I hoped William would appreciate my discipline.
    In the neat, white kitchen a copy of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer lay on the table, opened to the puzzle page. Someone had begun working the Sudoku with a mechanical pencil that had a very worn eraser. The only other item not tucked away in a cupboard was a small glass with orange juice residue in the bottom. The back sliding glass door stood open, the screen pushed to the side.
    Can you say escape route? I was willing to bet this was the swishing sound I’d heard when I first arrived. I gave a little shudder. I had scared someone off, someone I was very glad I hadn’t met, given today’s circumstances.
    I peeked in the single bedroom where a faux brass bed stood, neatly made and covered with an Amish quilt in shades of blue and yellow. Blue and yellow curtains hung at the windows and once again everything was neat as could be—except for the night table whose drawer was wide open. An alarm clock and a book lay on the floor beside the toppled bedside lamp.
    I looked in the bathroom last and there the mess left no doubt that someone had taken things or at the very least been looking for something specific. The medicine chest had been emptied into the sink, its door left gaping. Bottles, toiletries and a box of bandages lay in a heap; the toothbrush holder lay on the floor.
    I wondered which one of Mrs. Wilson’s they had made the mess.
    I went back to the kitchen and stared at the open sliding door. Hot, humid air poured in, melding with the crisp air-conditioning. The view out the door was the backs of another five-condo unit, separated from Martha’s by a row of conifers that had grown both tall and thick. I wondered if people were at home in those units and if one of them had looked out at the right time to see who had run from Martha’s place.
    I stepped outside and felt my ankle turn again. At this rate I’d be walking down the aisle with a cane.
    I looked down at the concrete slab that passed for a patio and saw I’d stepped on the edge of a book. I bent and picked it up without thinking. I grimaced, but the damage was done. My fingerprints were stamped on the red leather cover with or over someone else’s, someone besides Martha.
    I grabbed my shirttail and held the book in it. Using the material to protect the pages, I riffled through it quickly. It was a diary or a journal, the kind with all blank, lined pages. Its pages were more than half filled with a pretty, straight up and down penmanship. By the dates marking each new entry, I could see Martha wrote in it frequently rather than daily. When I glimpsed the name MAC, I knew it was time to call William and grabbed my cell.
    I’d just pressed the 9 of 911 when the glass door on the powder-blue unit slid open, and Mrs. Wilson stepped out.
    Without a thought, I dropped the journal into my purse. No way did I want her to see it and ask questions about it, maybe even demand I leave it here. It was something for William’s eyes only.
    I needn’t have worried. She didn’t see me. Her eyes were red, and she kept sniffing and wiping her nose with a crumpled wad of tissues. She stood staring at the conifers for a few minutes. Then she took a long, shuddering breath.
    “Are you all right, Mrs. Wilson?” I asked.
    She jumped and turned, her eyes wide and fearful. Her hand came up to cover her heart when she saw it was only me.
    “You