Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF

office, I could hear him guffawing over his own cleverness. I only hoped the steam that was coming out of my ears wouldn’t make my hair frizz.
    As soon as I got back to my car, I pulled out my cell phone and punched in Suzanne’s number.
    “Suzanne, it’s Jessie,” I said as soon as she answered. “I just paid a little visit to your lawyer. I thought it might be a good idea to check him out. You know, so you could get a second opinion.”
    “He’s great, right?” she asked hopefully.
    “Suzanne...” I realized it probably would be kinder to resist my natural inclination to tell her what I really thought. Somehow, words like turkey and idiot seemed so harsh. “I really think you need to find a new lawyer.”
    “But Marcus recommended him!” Suzanne insisted. “He and Jerry have been friends for years! Besides, he must know what he’s doing. Otherwise, how would he have gotten through law school? How would he have passed the bar? How would he have kept his practice going for all these years?”
    I suddenly remembered a lawyer joke I’d once heard. A lawyer goes to court to defend his client, who’s found guilty. The client turns to him and says, “What happens now?” The lawyer shrugs and says, “You go to jail, and I go back to my office.”
    I’d never found that so-called joke particularly amusing. But today I found it downright chilling.
    I burst forth with a long list of reasons why Suzanne would be making the biggest mistake of her life by putting all her eggs in Jerry Keeler’s basket, meanwhile watching the rain streak down my windshield.
    “Jess, I know you mean well,” she finally said, sounding as if she was losing patience. “But I have to go with the lawyer Marcus thinks is best. He loves me. I’ve got to trust him!”
    Her words—and the sentiments behind them—set my teeth on edge. The fact that love was a four-letter word wasn’t wasted on me. It had the potential to be extremely dangerous. In fact, the longer I lived, the more I saw people doing all kinds of crazy things because of what they claimed was love.
    As I hung up the phone, I was tempted to call Marcus to beg him to change his mind—and Suzanne’s. But I knew I wouldn’t have any better luck with him than I’d had with her.
    I was starting to suspect that if anybody was going to get Suzanne out of trouble, it was me. The frightening thing was, I had yet to figure out how I was ever going to accomplish such a daunting task. But I figured that going straight to the top wouldn’t be a bad way to start.
    I was sitting in my car, still watching the rain and trying to muster up the nerve to drop in on Lieutenant Anthony Falcone, Norfolk County’s chief of homicide, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the number that appeared on the screen but didn’t recognize it.
    “Dr. Popper,” I answered.
    “Dr. Jessica Popper?” a squeaky female voice inquired.
    “That’s right. Who’s this?”
    “Dr. Popper, my name is Marlene Fitzgerald, and I’m calling from Sunshine Media—”
    Great. A telemarketer from the company that supplied my cable service, interrupting me with an annoying sales call at the least convenient time possible. “I’m sorry to be rude,” I snapped, not trying in the least not to sound rude, much less even remotely sorry about it, “but I’m in the middle of something important and I really don’t have time for this.”
    “But—”
    I hung up before I had a chance to say anything even ruder. Then I turned the key in the ignition and drove off, wondering if I was making a huge mistake by not fortifying myself with the $4.99 Al Capone Meatball Sub Special before venturing into the belly of the beast.
    I knew I was taking a chance by simply dropping in on Lt. Falcone at his office. Then again, it was raining, and Falcone was the kind of guy who’d think twice about going outside on a day when he might ruin his shoes—even if they were probably pleather.
    I pulled into the parking lot