No Neighborhood for Old Women (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

top of their voices. It was no time at all before I saw the little dog creeping around one side of the house, tail and head down, ears drooping. “Maggie, he’s on your side,” I called.
    She scooped him up. “Oh, Gus, poor dog.” Then she looked at me. “He’s shivering, as if he’s cold.” Just then, he reached up and began licking Maggie’s face, and she giggled.
    “He’s not cold,” I said, thinking to myself that something scared this poor dog. I could just hear myself saying to Mike that Mrs. Dodson’s dog was scared and therefore I knew something bad happened to her. By now, I was convinced she’d been pushed. Even if the steps were rickety, she knew them.
    Gus came into our lives—and our home. My warnings that Mrs. Dodson’s relatives might want the dog fell on deaf ears. “They won’t,” Maggie said, cuddling the happy animal.

Chapter Three

    When we got home, Gus needed to prowl, and Maggie followed his every move, making sure he didn’t pee. He sniffed at the furniture and carpets, trotted down the hall to check out bedrooms, and explored the bathrooms.
    “He must be trained,” Maggie said, but I wasn’t so sure. I had a great-aunt once who let her dogs pee all over her house, and it always smelled so awful I hated to go there as a child. I put out water for him and made a note to get him dog food. Meantime there was that can of Spam that landed in my pantry I know not how.
    Then Claire arrived, carrying her cat, which she set down inside the front door. Gus began barking. The cat hissed and scampered all over the house with Gus close behind.
    Just as I was about to scoop up the dog or cat, whichever came by me first, the phone rang. “What the heck is happening?” Mike asked, hearing the squeals and shouting in the background.
    I sort of explained, and he said, “Claire Guthrie is there now?”
    “She’s going to stay in the guest house for a while.”
    “Yeah, I knew you would do that last night.” He sounded disappointed. “I’m off tonight at the last minute. I wanted to come for supper if you’d have me.”
    “Mike, I would be so glad if you’d come. Claire’s brought a wonderful casserole she had in her refrigerator.”
    “I don’t know, Kelly. I mean, I’m not sure I should socialize with Mrs. Guthrie. After all, I’ll have to testify against her.”
    “Even if she’s already pled guilty?”
    “By reason of insanity,” he said. “I won’t be able to go along with that.”
    There was something he wasn’t telling me, but I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. “Can’t you both agree not to talk about the case? I’d like to have a whole evening with you, instead of a late-night short stop-over.”
    “Yeah, me too. Okay, I’ll try.”
    When I told Claire Mike would join us, she asked, “Is it all right for me to be here? I’ll just go out to the guest house. I know he was the policeman who took care of Jim last night and took me downtown.”
    “No,” I said, “stay for supper, but just don’t talk about what’s happened. And could you put the cat in the guest house?”
    She put cat, litter box, cat bed and all in the apartment, along with the few personal things she’d brought. By the time she was settled in and Mike arrived, I heated the casserole, defrosted some French bread, and tossed up a salad with things Claire brought from her refrigerator.
    Dinner was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t until afterward I realized that Mike was in a funk that had nothing to do with Claire.
    Maggie and Em were delighted to see Mike and weren’t as good at recognizing a funk as I was. The girls prattled throughout the meal. “Did you meet Gus, our new dog?”
    “How could I not? He tried to attack me.” Mike smiled at her, but his eyes weren’t laughing.
    “He didn’t attack. He just made sure you were a friend,” Maggie retorted.
    “No, but he tackted Miss Claire’s cat,” Em said in four-year-old speak, “and he nearly killed it.”
    Mike looked