Evidence of Guilt Read Online Free PDF

"She drove a fancy car. A Cadillac. There was a real estate man too; he had a black Mercedes." Kevin looked toward the driveway at my battered and dirt-streaked Subaru. He turned back to me with an apologetic face. "Guess you're not one of them after all."
    Cars were a sore spot with me. My brand-new, silver
    BMW had not fared well with my return to Silver Creek. I'd driven home for my father's funeral. In the weeks that followed, while I was trying to help a friend accused of murder, the car's windows had been smashed, the tires slashed, the finish defaced and, finally, the entire vehicle wrecked beyond repair. The Subaru was secondhand, and a very poor substitute. Unfortunately, it was all I could afford.
    "I'm a lawyer," I told him, with my own variant of bravado. "And I'm going to want to talk to your brother about the time he found Mrs. Cornell and Amy."
    Kevin's mouth worked the gum for a moment. Then he blew a large bubble and removed the wad from his mouth to admire it. "My mom doesn't like him to talk about it," Kevin said, returning the gum to his mouth. "He gets upset, acts real crazy. He even wet his bed once. He paid me five dollars not to tell."
    I gave him a sympathetic nod. I knew what kind of shape I'd be in after stumbling across a couple of dead, decaying bodies. And I was well past thirteen. "I won't ask him to go into detail."
    'You want my opinion, I think he's just trying to get attention. He got to be famous for finding them, and now nobody cares about that anymore. All they want to talk about is that guy who killed them." Abruptly, and in one smooth motion, Kevin slid past me and darted for the door. "I gotta go. My mom gets mad if I'm late."
    With Kevin gone, the enfolding silence was like an echo. I spent another couple of minutes taking in the barn's layout, fixing a mental picture in my head. Then I left as well, heading through the yard this time instead of the orchard. Near the house I passed a tire swing hanging from the
    branch of an old oak. A purple pail and shovel and a collection of plastic ponies lay in the dirt below. I felt a knot form in my stomach.
    The taking of any human life was hard enough to comprehend; I couldn't begin to imagine the sort of sicko it took to kill a child.

4
    I drove home with the windows down, the hot air whipping through my hair and pounding in my ears. White noise, drowning out my thoughts.
    Loretta and Barney met me at the door, barking their greeting even before I'd slipped the key into the lock. Once I was inside the racket quieted to whines and whimpers, but they made up for it with lively body language. Loretta rubbed her torso hard against my legs, while Barney leaped at me from all directions like a coiled spring gone berserk. Dropping my purse and Wes Harding's file onto the Parsons table by the door, I reached down and gave them each a vigorous scratching behind the ears.
    This was further evidence of how much my life had changed. Until a year ago I wouldn't have attempted to raise an African violet without a secretary to water and care for it. Now I found myself responsible for a dog and a half.
    Loretta had been my father's dog. I inherited her by default when he died. I also inherited Barney, and Barney's
    four brothers and sisters, although I hadn't known that at the time.
    Officially, Barney is Tom's dog, or rather Tom's children's dog, at least on the days they stay at his place. Hence the name Barney, which they had chosen over a sizable list of suggestions from Tom and myself. Chosen for some reason known only to them, despite the fact that they'd long since outgrown childhood TV shows. Barney is half springer spaniel, half something that I guarantee isn't dinosaur. And his fur is a cocoa brown, not purple.
    When Tom was out of town I took care of Barney. Even when Tom wasn't, Barney wound up at my place as often as not. But then, so did Tom. Or he had until recently. In the last few months our relationship had seemed to stall. It was nothing