The Death of Perry Many Paws Read Online Free PDF

the street to my house. Straight back and forth across the street and nothing more. So Syra left him at home to bake us something as a reward for what we were about to do and we took off, armed with garbage bags, water bottles, cookies and cleaning supplies.
    Syra sensed my dread of returning to the crime scene and tried to distract me by asking about my ongoing battle with my editor over Perry Many Paws and his friends.
    “He’s rejected two of my opening chapters so far. He won’t let Perry find any new friends. He won’t let me temporarily lose Squeaky and Friendly. He won’t let me move Perry to some exotic location and he won’t let me involve Perry Many Paws in anything that even whiffs of mischievousness. Oh, and Grace, he did not like your name change suggestions. Promiscuous Pig and Horny Owl are definitely out. My hands are tied.”
    Grace tramped behind us, struggling to keep up and balance her water bottle and box of garbage bags. “I need a walking stick. Isn’t there a way to drive to this cottage?”
    “Actually, there is,” I yelled back, holding aside a tree bough until Syra caught up with me. “But you still have to walk in from where you park the car, and that trail is grown over because it’s never used.”
    “It’s got to be shorter than this,” Grace swatted at some imaginary bit of nature that she felt touching her face.
    “It’s shorter but you’d need a machete to get through. We’re almost there.”
    “Will there be anything, you know, disgusting?” Diane asked, stepping gingerly over a fallen branch, flicking away bits of leaves that fell onto her white twin set sweaters.
    “Don’t worry. It won’t be like an episode of “CSI”. The police gave us the okay to have professional cleaners come in to get all the, uh, traces of disgusting stuff. We just need to sort through Franklin’s personal stuff. Most of it we’ll probably throw away, but there might be something we can salvage for Goodwill.”
    We came to the clearing by the cottage and I stopped dead in my tracks. Like dutiful attendants, Syra and Diane smacked into my back. Grace was able to stop before adding to the domino effect. Syra gave me a gentle shove. “Nothing to be afraid of. There are no ghosts,” she reassured me. This elicited an indignant sniff from Grace, who firmly believed that not only were there ghosts, or spirits as she called them, but she could see and communicate with them under the right circumstances.
    From the outside, the cottage looked better than when I had last been here. It was as if the removal of the scowling old man and the subsequent cleaning up inside had affected the whole aura of the place. Maybe this task wouldn’t be so bad after all.
    “My sneakers are all dirty,” Diane said, apropos of nothing. We all ignored her and made our way to the front door. Just as my hand touched the knob, Diane’s phone began to purr and we all screamed and clutched at each other, stumbling off the porch and moving back towards the woods.
    “Hi Kara, what’s going on? (pause) No, I can’t bring you another pair of gym shorts. What’s wrong with the ones you took this morning? (longer pause) Well that’s what happens if you take them out of the dryer before they’re dry. (longest pause) Then you’ll just have to take them to the locker room and hold them under the hand dryer.” Diane snapped her phone shut and starred at us. “Why am I the only one on the porch? Aren’t we going inside?” She opened up the cottage door and marched in.
    Light was flooding through the windows and the place smelled strongly of lemon. While the others set their bags on the kitchen table, I went ahead and peeked in the study, trying not to recall the last time I’d looked in there. The rug was gone. The floor was clean. It wasn’t scary at all.
    “It’s all cleaned up. It’s fine,” I said to my reinforcements.
    “Okay,” Syra replied. “Tell us what you want us to do.”
    Grace had flopped in the