Dead Over Heels Read Online Free PDF Page B

said.
    “The means of his death are not known now,” stated Sheriff Padgett Lanier. “Only the autopsy can tell us that.”
    Lanier went on to say the sheriff ’s department is investigating how someone else could have entered the Piper plane, rented by Burns from Starry Night Airport yesterday, and overcome Burns. The plane was found returned yesterday, and no one at the tiny airport can identify the pilot.
    See Obituaries, Page 6.
     
    I could imagine Sally’s frustration at being given so little to work with. When she’d called me the night before to offer me the tidbit about Jack Burns himself having rented the plane that took him to his final landing place, perhaps she’d been in search of some additional detail to pad out the story. Accompanying it was the usual grim shot of the two medics loading the covered stretcher into the ambulance. You could tell the covered bundle was sort of flat . . . I gulped and pushed the memory away.
    I glanced at the clock. It was a relief to have to look at it again, to have something to plan my days around. I’d resumed working part-time at the library in Lawrenceton four weeks ago when Sam Clerrick had called me out of the blue to tell me his oldest librarian had suddenly turned to him to say, “I can’t shelve one more book. I can’t tell one more child to be quiet. I can’t deal with this new aide. I can’t tell one more patron where the Georgia collection is.”
    Left in a bind, Sam had called me since I’d worked for him before. I’d agreed instantly to take the job; and Sam had agreed to see how my working part-time would do, at least while he scouted around to see if anyone wanted to work full-time. So I was working nine to one for five days a week, with one of the days changing every week, since the library was open on Saturdays from nine to one. No one wanted Saturday every week, including me. The aide took over in the afternoons, sometimes in conjunction with a volunteer.
    I was ready to go in early. Might as well get the inevitable inquisition from my co-workers over with.
    It was a beautiful spring Tuesday, with lots of sun and a brisk cool breeze. Angel was sitting on the steps leading up to the Youngbloods’ garage apartment, looking muddy, the result of pallor under her chronic tan.
    “What’s the matter?” I couldn’t remember Angel ever being ill.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “The past few days I’ve just felt awful. I don’t want to get up out of bed, I don’t want to run.”
    “Do you have a temperature?”
    “No,” she said listlessly. “At least, I don’t think so. We’ve never had a thermometer.”
    I tried to imagine that. “Did you try to run today?”
    “Yeah. I got about half a mile and had to come back.” She was still in her running clothes, sweating profusely.
    “Look, let me take you in to the doctor. I’ve got an hour before I really have to be at work,” I said impulsively. I hated to think of Angel driving to the doctor by herself; she was so obviously ill.
    “I’ve never been to a doctor except to get stitched up in an emergency room,” Angel said.
    “Let me go call him,” I said, when I’d recovered from my shock. “You go take a shower and pull on some slacks.”
    Angel nodded wearily and pulled herself up by the railing. She was trudging up the stairs as I went inside to call the doctor and the library. “I promise I’ll work the hours today,” I told Sam. “I just have to take a friend to the doctor. She hasn’t got anyone else.”
    “There are disadvantages to having an employee who doesn’t really need the job,” Sam said distantly. “Is this going to be happening much?”
    “No,” I said, a little offended, though I knew he was in the right. “I’ll be in on time tomorrow. It’s just today that I’ll be a little late.”
    When I got out to my old blue car, Angel was sitting on the passenger’s side in white slacks and a yellow tank top, though it seemed cool for a tank top to me. I