Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books Read Online Free PDF Page B

but nothing is here now. How come you didn’t call the police?”
    “Did call–twice. They put me on hold–twice. I don’t have enough time left in this world to be spending any of it on hold.”
    Mac dusted off his hands on his jeans. “You didn’t see anyone around later that night? Or how about the burglary on Sunday night?”
    Before the old man could answer, the lights in the house began coming on.
    “Let’s go,” Mac whispered, scrambling to his feet.
    The sound of the back door opening panicked both men.
    “Save yourself,” Edgar gasped, waving Mac towards the nearby oak tree. “Get up there. I’ll divert her.”
    Feeling as foolish as he probably looked, Mac climbed the tree, hoping there were enough leaves left on the branches to hide him.
     
    ***
     
    Rachel Brenner came around the house, flashlight in one hand, baseball bat in the other. “Mr. Freed? What in the world are you doing out here?”
    The old man jerked upright in his scooter chair as though her voice had awakened him. “Who’s that?”
    “Rachel Brenner,” she answered, shining the flashlight at him and then drawing close to the elderly neighbor she’d known casually for years. “What are you doing here?”
    Edgar rubbed one hand across his wrinkled face and then blinked several times. “Is that you, Miz. Brenner?”
    Rachel lowered the light so it wasn’t shining in the old man’s face.
    Edgar groaned, and then reached out a shaking hand to the woman. “Miz. Brenner?”
    Personally, Mac thought he was overdoing it a bit, but since he was the one sitting in a tree like a squirrel, he didn’t feel like he was in any position to criticize the old guy.
    Rachel dropped the bat and took Edgar’s hand. “Yes, it’s Rachel Brenner. Why are you in my yard, Mr. Freed? Where’s Elinor?”
    “I-I.” Edgar paused. “I must have been sleepwalking. Can you take me home?”
    Rachel frowned, glancing pointedly at his scooter chair. “Sleepwalking?”
    The old man nodded. “I guess you’d actually call it sleep rolling.” He turned on the scooter chair and it began moving slowly over the grass. Calling over his shoulder, he added, “I’ll go home now–if I can find my house. It’s a terrible thing to get old, Rachel. Don’t ever do it.”
    She hurried forward. “I’ll just walk with you. Everything is going to be fine.”
    “Let’s keep this our little secret,” the cagey Edgar added as he maneuvered the scooter chair up on the sidewalk. “Elinor gets wind of this, she’ll stick me in a nursing home. Course if she did, she’d have more time for her neighbors.”
    Even from his tree branch, Mac could tell from the way Rachel’s back stiffened that she didn’t think more time with Elinor Freed was a good thing.
    “My lips are sealed,” she told the old man.
    Mac swung down from the tree, landing more heavily than he would have liked. “Yeah, Rachel,” he sarcastically mumbled. “Getting old is the pits.”
     

Chapter 5
     
    “I can’t tell you and you’ve got a hell of a nerve asking.” Lieutenant James Greeley glared at his former lead detective. It was barely 10 in the morning and the dapper head of detectives was already on his third cheap cigar.
    “I didn’t say a word,” Mac said with a smile, and dropped down onto the chair opposite his old boss. “Just stopped by because Roseanne said she had some homemade lasagna for Whiskey.”
    “Yeah right,” snorted the forty-five-year-old lieutenant who loved designer suits and snow-white shirts. “The only thing Roseanne makes that’s homemade is trouble.” He spat the tail end of his cigar into the gunmetal-gray waste can.
    “Got that right.” Mac laughed. “Nothing on that body is homemade.”
    “Keep your hands off my clerk if you don’t want to catch something nasty.” Greeley frowned at him, adding a second warning, “And I don’t need you poking your nose into the Malwick case.”
    “Because you’ve got your star detective working on