Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice Read Online Free PDF

picked up the dead mouse in its teeth.
    The yellow door of the house opened and a girl screamed. “Oh, damn you, Timothy. Drop that, put it down. Damn you.” She was tall and husky, a freckled blonde wearing tan shorts and a candy-stripe jersey pullover. She screamed again, waving a hand at the triumphant cat. Ashes from her cigarette speckled the dirty cat. “Damn you, Timothy.” Another cat, this one a pale orange, leaped between the girl’s long legs and slapped at the dangling mouse. “Not you too, Martha.”
    “Good afternoon,” said Easy.
    Jeannie Mowatt looked at him and brought her cigarette back to her lips. “Can you do something?”
    “Such as?”
    “Take that poor mouse away from him.”
    Easy bent. He rapped his broad knuckles across the back of the growling white cat’s skull. It dropped the mouse. Easy scooped up both the cats and held them toward the big attractive girl. “Both of these yours?”
    Jeannie Mowatt hesitated, then took the two animals. When she touched them goosepimples broke out on her bare arms and legs. “Yes. We’ve got four of the things.” She scowled at Timothy, whose whiskers were spattered red. “He was such a sweet gentle kitten. I didn’t even think we’d have to have him fixed.” She clutched a cat under each arm. “Could you do me one more favor?”
    “Sure,” answered Easy.
    She gave a terse nod of her head toward the dead mouse. “If I get a dustpan and a whisk broom will you dispose of that? I can’t stand touching dead things.”
    Reaching into his pocket, Easy withdrew a blank file card. He picked the mouse up by its tail and dropped it on the card. The rain had thinned the spills of blood away to a faint foamy pink. “Did you have some specific last resting place in mind?”
    The husky blonde watched Easy’s rough weathered face for a few seconds. She smiled and said, “Would you mind carrying him through to the garbage cans out back?”
    “Okay.”
    Jeannie backed up, still clutching the cats against her large breasts. “Straight through and out the sliding doors to the patio.”
    Easy wiped his feet on the shaggy welcome mat. The long dim hallway, which cut straight through the house, was carpeted in thick gold. It smelled of cigarette smoke and dying flowers. Easy strode the width of the house, opened the patio doors and dropped the dead mouse and file card into one of the three green plastic garbage cans.
    “You seem to know your way around our house,” said the girl when he ducked back inside.
    “I’ve been in similar places.”
    She let the two cats fall to the floor. “God, they are all alike, aren’t they? Mar Vista Estates. You know what mar vista means?”
    “It implies you should be able to see the ocean.”
    “My husband did see it when he was up on the roof fiddling with the TV antenna.” She took a deep drag on the cigarette. “He’s at work at the moment.”
    Easy’s secretary had checked with one of their phone company contacts, who’d used a backwards directory to give them Ned’s full name and address from the phone number Joanna’s husband had found. “My name is John Easy,” he told the girl.
    “Jeannie Mowatt.” She held her arms straight out. “Look at that, I’m all goosebumps. Just feel.”
    Easy refrained from feeling. “I’d like to talk to you and your husband.”
    The girl stepped forward suddenly, grabbed hold of Easy, kissed him. “Sorry. I get impulses like, this sometimes, when I’m upset.”
    Easy swallowed, put his hands on her shoulders and eased her back and away from him. “You’d better let me tell you who I am.”
    “John Easy, you already told me.” She folded her arms under her breasts. The nipples showed dark and hard under the thin jersey. “That’s enough of an introduction for me.” She inhaled deeply on the cigarette. “Jesus, you don’t know how depressed and lonely these rainy days make me. Even though we can’t see the frigging ocean we get the fringe benefits. The