The Last Blue Plate Special Read Online Free PDF

women prisoners out there last time I checked.”
    Rox was grinding her teeth. I could see jaw muscles working in the left side of her face.
    “I’m the staff psychiatrist at Donovan Prison,” she said in a tone I don’t ever want directed at me. A tone that could turn
     ordinary cottage cheese to a tub of cinders. “What, exactly, do you want of Dr. McCarron and me?”
    To his credit the detective scuffed a black leather shoe against the bleached-out ground before answering. I had a sense that
     his tough-guy act was a skin he’s shed some time ago and now barely remembered.
    “I’m sorry,” he said finally, taking off his shades to look straight at Roxie. “Can you confirm your identity and vouch for
     Berry-man and McCarron here?”
    Rox sighed, a long sigh full of history. Then she took her wallet from her purse and showed Rathbone a lot of identification
     proving, among other things, that she outranked him and made a lot more money, too.
    “Mr. Berryman was employed to organize the political fundraiser for Kate Van Der Elst, who was a friend of the deceased, Dixie
     Ross,” she said in the petrified cottage cheese voice. “He is an ex-con and also African-American, but that doesn’t mean he
     had anything to do with whatever it is you’re investigating. I’ll vouch for him. Dr. McCarron scarcely needs my endorsement.
     You may not have noticed, but she’s white.”
    The detective appeared to be making a difficult decision as he stared at a clump of dried-out locoweed growing beside the
     road. A tea decocted from the leaves and stems of this plant, not to mention its particularly nasty flowers, affects the central
     nervous system and brain. Locoweed can cause madness, even death, in large mammals such as sheep, horses, and SDPD detectives.
    “Eat that plant!” I whispered, glaring at Rathbone, who didn’t hear me.
    “Look,” he said, reaching into his car and retrieving a manila folder, “I’m going to show you what’s going on. Then I’d really
     appreciate it if both of you would tell me what you think. We got this three weeks ago in the mail. Nobody took it seriously
     at the time. Now everybody does. I’m afraid we’ve got a situation on our hands.”
    Rox took the envelope, propped it on Brontë’s back, and opened it. Inside was a photocopy of a typed letter. Around two sentences
     of text its author had glued about fifty article headlines clipped from newspapers. All were about Dixie Ross or Mary Harriet
     Grossinger.
    “Ross Opposes Landfill Project” or “Grossinger Calls for Further Discussion on Term Limits.” Typical political headers.
    The message read simply, “These woman trying to be men and have to dye. There not the only one.”
    It was signed with the typed words, “The Sword of Heaven.”
    “Uh-oh,” Roxie said softly. “There goes dinner.”
    As Rathbone followed us in his car to my motel, I couldn’t help wondering about the presumed relationship between women in
     nontraditional lines of work and hair coloring. It was clear to me that, if nothing else, the letter’s author was a lousy
     speller.

3
A Habitation of Dragons
    T he ‘Sword of Heaven’ reference is probably from the Bible,” Roxie said as Rathbone stood around in my bare dirt driveway trying
     to decide whether to help carry groceries in or remain coplike. Roxie handed him the two heaviest bags. “Of course anyone
     could assume that,” she went on. “What is it you want us to do with this letter, analyze it? And did I mention we charge a
     fee?”
    “Fee?”
    “Consulting. You want to know something about whoever wrote this, right?”
    Rathbone nodded, his clean-shaven jaw hidden behind the edge of a brown grocery bag that looked yellow in the late afternoon
     glare.
    “Well, we can probably tell you a few things, but we’d prefer to do so professionally.”
    “The department uses consultants all the time,” he said, standing to the side of the door so that Roxie and I could enter