Sandy Gingras - Lola Polenta 01 - Swamped Read Online Free PDF Page B

911.”
    “Yeah, but did you have Ernie’s blood all over you?” I ask. “”Ugh,” I say, “That was bad.”
    He says, “Maybe we could both use a P.I.”
    “But, I’m only on Lesson Two.”
    That deflates him. Still, he asks me for one of my cards. He chuckles when he sees it. “That’s catchy,” he says.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    “Would you care to take a tour of the grounds with me?” he asks, waving his arm at the panorama of the trailer camp before us.
    “Is it in nature?” I ask apprehensively.
    “You don’t like nature?” Joe asks me.
    “I have a fear of it.”
    “ALL of nature?”
    “Except for the neat kind. Like a lawn, for example. And hedges that are in squares, bushes round like you used to draw them in kindergarten, you know, flowers in rows…” I trail off.
    He looks at me.
    “I’m from New Jersey,” I explain.
    “I see,” he says.
    It’s a one-mile walk, and I’m drooping by the first half mile. But Joe is chugging along nicely in his white shoes. “I have to get a pair of those,” I tell him. I’m wearing my snappy pink flip-flops that I bought at a rest stop on I-95 when I crossed the border. They have big plastic hibiscus flowers on the strap. I think my judgment was overcome by my arrival in a tropical climate.
    “So, did you find out anything from Marie?” Joe asks me.
    “She said that there was a change in Ernie recently?”
    “Oh yeah. He got real bossy in the last few months. And nosy. He rode around on that mower in his Spandex pants like he was in charge of the world. And he bulked up. I think he was on steroids or something.
    “He told me the other day that I should wake up at 4 a.m. to be out on the street when the garbage men came by so that I could put my garbage cans back in their bin immediately. He told Clara Billy that her flowers were growing crooked, and to straighten them up.”
    “Steroids make you aggressive, don’t they?”
    “Very.”
    “Maybe he got too aggressive with someone?” I say.
    “He was always snooping around. He always wanted to get dirt on people. Back when my wife was dying, he hinted around that he knew I was running around with Millie Turttlehaus.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Were you?”
    “No way. Ernie was just stabbing in the dark. It was a bunch of lies. I told my wife. She thought it was funny.
    “Millie’s on the Homeowner’s Beautification Committee with me. Truth be told, she’s a little obsessive about mowing grass. And she’s got these hooded eyes.”
    “Why was he hinting around then? What did he want?”
    “I don’t know. I just laughed at him. But now that I think of it, I wonder if he did try that kind of thing on other people. Ernie was a control freak; he would have loved to have something on anybody. I wonder if he wanted money or something from me.”
    “Blackmail?”
    “Could’ve been…”
    I say, “He’d have money if he was a blackmailer, right? Maybe that’s why they’re sealing off his trailer. Maybe he kept his money in there.”
    “I doubt it. Marie cleans that place non-stop. I don’t think he’d be able to have a hiding place in that little trailer.”
    “What about a bank account?”
    “I don’t think blackmailers want any record of their… uh… transactions.”
    “You’re probably right. Did he act like he had money? I mean, he was living with his sister in their trailer, that doesn’t sound like he had a lot.”
    “He was actually pretty cheap.”
    My mind is whirling.
    Joe says, “I know some people that he worked for, who don’t speak highly of him. I always wondered why they kept him on. “Why don’t I hire you to investigate?” he says, his face brightening.
    My breath catches. “But, I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I say.
    “I know a lot of people here,” he says. “I could help you.”
    “What about the cops?” I say.
    “Oh, the cops,” he says.
    I tell him, “Listen, it could be dangerous. Ernie ended up with a golf club in his skull.” But