The Baby Blue Rip-Off Read Online Free PDF

questioning, Brennan said not a word to me, while he got everything in motion. But now that the situation was under control and the detail work beginning, Brennan was starting to get restless. He paced. He wandered around like a caged animal. He was simply too big a man for Mrs. Jonsen’s little house; he was the freak show’s giant stuck in the midget’s dressing room. Restless, pacing, wandering around, Sheriff Brennan was getting pissed off, and that meant he’d be talking to me again.
    You see, Brennan didn’t like me much. And our mutual dislike was about all we had in common.
    I was sitting on the arm of the couch in Mrs. Jonsen’s living room. From where I was, I could see into the dining room, off to the right, beyond which was the kitchen, off to the left. The couch was one of a handful of things left in the room. The television was gone, along with the cabinet of antique china and some of the older, nicer pieces of furniture; most everything was gone. In addition, much that remained had been torn apart, as if looting the place wasn’t enough and a finishing touch of vandalism had been necessary. Pillows and couch and chair cushions had been gutted by some sharp knife; even the flowered wallpaper had been chopped into here and there. The braid rug had been rolled carelessly to one side, and floorboards had been pried loose. Any furniture that didn’t fit the category of antique had been knocked over, mostly broken by the force of the act.
    Suddenly Brennan stopped pacing. He looked at me like he hadn’t noticed I was there before. He said, “What’re you doing here, Mallory?” He rocked back and forth on his feet.
    I didn’t say anything. He seemed to want me to be a smart-ass, so he could yell at me or maybe slap me around a little. But I didn’t oblige him. I’m never witty after getting kicked in the nuts.
    “What’re you doing here?” he continued. “What’s this delivery-boy horseshit?”
    “It’s just something I was doing.”
    “What were you delivering food at seven o’clock at night for?”
    “I was about an hour behind schedule. I got to talking to one of the other old ladies.”
    Light flashed from the kitchen, where Lou Brown was taking pictures of the body. Brennan turned to go out to the kitchen and said, over his shoulder, “I’ll be talking to you some more, Mallory.”
    “Terrific.”
    “You sit right there.”
    “And here I was planning to dance,” I said, finally obliging him with the smart-ass remark he was after.
    He stopped and looked at me hard. “Maybe you find this funny.”
    I stood. “Not at all, Brennan. It’s just I’m bored with your stupid macho act, which is what you fall back on for lack of being able to launch an actual investigation.” I was pointing a finger at him like a gun.
    “Don’t point your finger at me—”
    I showed him another finger.
    “Brennan!” It was Lou Brown, in the kitchen.
    “Yeah, coming,” Brennan said, glaring at me, then joining Brown.
    I sat down.
    More light flashed in the kitchen doorway. Two ambulance attendants came in, rolling a stretcher behind them. Brennan told them just a minute, and they stood outside the kitchen in the dining area, which was just as emptied and torn up as the living room. The attendants wore traditional white and seemed anxious to get in there, like guys on the bench waiting to get in the game. I wondered if they’d run the siren coming out here. I doubted they would run the siren going back.
    A fat man in a brown suit burst through the front door. He was just short of being round; his flesh was doughy and paler than Deputy Brown’s. His hair was the same color as his suit, and he was balding, combing his hair over the front of his head from in back where it was still growing, Zero Mostel–style. In fact, he resembled Zero Mostel, only not funny.
    “Look at this place,” he said, looking at it. “Oh my God, look at it.” He peered into the living room and covered his face with a