Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 03 - Haunted Read Online Free PDF Page A

noticed I was deep in thought. “Are you thinking about Walter, like I am?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said, not wanting to admit I was thinking about making an appointment for a perm. I liked to let Stone believe I was very low-maintenance, even though the maintenance routine was getting more and more complex with each passing year.
    Fortunately, Stone was pretty unobservant when it came to my appearance. I could have been wearing a do-rag and an eye patch for all he noticed. Thank God he loved me for all the right reasons and not just my physical appearance. At five-foot-two and 125 pounds, I wasn’t exactly model material. But Stone wasn’t David Beckham either, and I was glad he wasn’t. Excessively handsome men could be excessively vain too, and I loved Stone exactly the way he was: warm and caring, and sensitive to my needs.
    “I can’t get Walter off my mind,” Stone admitted. “I feel so damned bad about him getting killed right beneath our very noses.”
    “You were outside most of the morning. Did you see anything unusual?” I realized the detectives had already asked him these same questions, but I was hoping to jog a memory he might have forgotten.
    “I don’t recall anyone pulling into the driveway at around the time of the murder, but then I was in the garden shed out back, tweaking the engine on my lawn mower,” Stone said between bites of the new potatoes he was eating. His appetite had not been affected by the untimely death of Walter Sneed. “I did find out, however, that as the mail carrier was dropping off our mail, he spotted someone dressed in dark clothing leaving the front yard on foot. He said the person cut through the hedges into the yard next door as if to get out of sight as quickly as possible.”
    “How did you find out about that?”
    “The mail carrier mentioned something about it to Willard next door when he went up to the house to deliver an Express Mail package. I’ve already phoned Wyatt to tell him about it.”
    “Would the mailman be able to give a description of the person or make an identity?” I asked.
    “I doubt it,” Stone said. “He was busy and didn’t think much about it at the time. According to Willard, he only recalled the dark clothing, and that the person seemed to be in a hurry.”
    As I cleaned up the dishes after supper, Stone watched the television in the front room. He called me into the living room when a piece on Walter’s murder was being shown on the evening news. The reporter didn’t mention the presumed cause of death or give any other useful information. I’m sure releasing too much information to the public could impede the investigation process, so I was not surprised at the lack of details. I felt a new sense of grief when they showed Walter’s senior high school photo. He seemed so young and innocent, like a young man looking forward to a whole life ahead of him. And I knew from talking to him that he’d had a full and rewarding life planned for himself.
    I went to bed early that evening. The emotions of the day had left me exhausted. Tomorrow I would begin to see if I could find out something that might lead to the killer. I would be as low key as possible about it, so as not to worry Stone. He had enough on his plate as it was.

 
     
     
    Chapter 4

     
    I called the hair salon early the next morning and was delighted to discover I could get an appointment for eleven o’clock. This appointment would serve two purposes. It gave me a reason to drive downtown, and also I wanted to look good for Walter’s funeral, which I knew Stone and I would be expected to attend. But then, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
    In the meantime, I wanted to visit Melba in the hospital and see how she was doing and, yes, ask a few prying questions. I don’t know what it says about our society, but when a murder occurs, the first suspects who come to mind are those people who were closest to the victim—the spouse, lover, children, and even