The Borrowed and Blue Murders (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

six-packs. Grabbing a slice of mushroom, I’d retreated to the bedroom with a glass of seltzer and my cell phone.
    Susan Cummings was my best friend. A prominent criminal defense attorney, she was also the very married mother of three girls, an incredible homemaker and cook, an avid volunteer for a dozen charitable organizations and president of the Home and School Association. For Susan, life was a matter of juggling projects. Her projects ranged from dieting to decorating, fund-raising to child rearing, attending
Carmen
to arguing in court. Susan attacked every project with passion—baking, shopping, defending clients, being married to Tim. But for all the commotion in her life, Susan was a constant friend; normally, she steadied me. Her home, her presence, even her voice grounded me. Whenever I faced trouble, I sought her out.
    “Finally,” she scolded me. Her voice was angry and very un- grounding. “Why didn’t you answer my calls? I tried the house. I tried your cell. I was about to come over there and break the door down.”
    “I couldn’t call you or anybody. The cops were here until just now.”
    “Well?”
    Well. What should I say?
    “Zoe. Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
    “Of course you are. And the pope’s a Hindu.”
    She was right. I wasn’t fine. I was numb, way too calm. Probably in some kind of shock. “I mean, under the circumstances. We’re fine under the circumstances.”
    “Okay. So, spill.”
    I spilled, recounting events as if telling her would somehow make them less unfathomable, as if words might diminish the grisliness of the woman’s death. They didn’t, but as I finished, I felt somehow validated by Susan’s reactions, her occasional “damn” or “no way.”
    “So. Do they know anything yet? I mean do they have any leads? What does Nick say?”
    I gave her the latest update. “They don’t know who she is, but they think the murder was about drugs.”
    “Well, duh. That’s obvious.”
    It was? “How is it obvious?”
    “Get real, Zoe. Why else would they cut her open?”
    “So, you knew about that?” I hadn’t. Until that day, I hadn’t any idea that people swallowed bags of drugs and transported them across borders in their stomachs, primarily to get the drugs past Customs.
    “Of course I did. You mean you didn’t?” She paused, and I didn’t answer. “Of course you didn’t. You’re Zoe.”
    “Don’t start.” Save me, she was going to start her “you live in a bubble” routine again, depicting me as a completely naive and idealistic airhead.
    “But it’s true. Zoe, you live in a bubble, ignoring unpleasantness, shutting out whatever you don’t want to know. You simply refuse to accept the ugly parts of life.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “It is true.”
    I wanted to say, “It isn’t,” but she’d just say, “It is,” and we’d go back and forth, arguing like a couple of six-year-olds. Still, I’d seen my share of ugliness, and I was irritated at the way she repeatedly claimed to be worldlier, more knowledgeable than I. “So what are you saying, Susan? That people commonly jog around the neighborhood with bellies full of heroin?”
    “Maybe not. Could be full of cocaine.”
    I leaned back against my pillows. Damn. Was she right? Was it really common, mainstream knowledge that people swallowed bags of drugs to transport them inside their bellies? Couldn’t be.
    “Susan, the only way you know this stuff is because you work with criminals. You defend drug dealers on a daily basis. The underbelly of society is your bread and butter, so your viewpoint is skewed. The average person has no idea—”
    “The average person is a moron—forget about him. Tell me more about what Nick said.”
    “He just said what I told you. That the cops think it was drugs. One theory is that one of the bags burst in her belly and killed her, so they had to cut out the other bags. Another is that maybe she was holding out on the