Perplexity on P1/2 (Parson's Cove Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

that.”
         He held the door open and I went in. There was no need to tell me he’d been working on the plumbing - one whiff and I knew.
         The thing that hits me smack in the face when I walk into a hospital, unless I run into Bob first, is the smell. I immediately start to breathe through my mouth and if I’m not careful, hyperventilate. The hallway leading to the morgue smelled even worse. Or, maybe it was my imagination.
         I looked to the right and the left but could see no one. Was Reg in with the body? Knowing Reg, he wouldn’t be there any longer than he had to be. The hallway was narrow, bleak, and appeared never-ending. To my right, at the end of that passage was a gray steel door. On the other side of that door was the morgue. Everything in the hallway was gray: the walls, the floor, and even the light fixtures. The most depressing color in the world.
         I tried walking on my tiptoes but still my rubber-soled runners squeaked and echoed with each step. When I came to the steel door, I stopped to listen. Silence. I held my breath and pressed the door open. No one was in the room. At least, no one who could  talk and breathe. I stuck my head back out to make sure the hallway was still empty. Reg and the boys were probably on their way to the police station by now.
         I stood just inside the door and looked around. It was not a large room. The one florescent light in the middle of the ceiling, along with the white cupboards and the steel table, made the room look colorless and lifeless - like the body, covered by a white sheet, stretched out on a gurney a few feet in front of me. Cold sweat formed on my forehead and my heart pounded in my ears. One thing, I couldn’t do - I couldn’t faint and have Nurse Grappley find me. Just imagining her wrath brought oxygen to my brain. I tiptoed over to the motionless white mound, instinctively watching for any slight movement.
         My hand trembled as I lifted the cloth from the woman’s face. I didn’t realize I’d gasped until I heard my own echo. It sounded deafening, alien. I lowered the sheet.
         This was a stranger to Parson’s Cove but not to me.
         Grace Hobbs looked exactly the same as I’d seen her, only a few days before. The only difference was the small reddish-purple bullet hole between her eyes.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
         Reg held up his hand. “Mabel, I don’t have time for you this morning. Captain Maxymowich will be here any minute now. If you’re still concerned about that silly phone message, you’ll have to wait. I have a much more serious crime to solve.” Tiny beads of sweat covered his forehead and it looked as though he’d applied Flori’s rouge to his whole face. “Why aren’t you in your shop anyway?” he snipped at me.
         I’d barely gotten my body inside the door and there Reg stood, glaring at me, judging me, and looking like he was stopping traffic in the middle of a busy intersection in New York City.
         “Reg,” I said, looking him right in the eyes and putting my hands on my hips. “I think you might want to hear what I have to say.”
         He shook his head. “No, Mabel, you have absolutely nothing that I want to hear. Scully,” he said, as he turned towards the other side of the room, “show Miss Wickles the way out.” With that, he walked to his office and shut the door.
         “I know where the door is, Reg,” I yelled. “I just walked through it.” I waited a moment and then yelled louder, “I also know who the dead woman in the morgue is.”
         Slowly, ever so slowly, Reg’s office door squeaked open. He peered around the corner.
         “What did you say?” (Now I know what writers mean when they say a person’s face is as black as thunder.)
         “I said I know who the dead woman is. You know, there was a woman murdered, right here in Parson’s Cove?”
         “Of course I know a woman was