The Last Blue Plate Special Read Online Free PDF Page B

first. One of those moments. With both arms full of groceries, he couldn’t hold the new screen door I’d installed after ramming
     my truck through the old motel office door only months ago. Roxie had to go back outside to hold it open for him, after which
     they headed for the kitchen while I closed the bottom half of the custom steel-core Dutch interior door but left the top half
     open against the interior wall. I love Dutch doors. And when both halves are closed, this one can stop just about anything
     shot from a conventional weapon. You can’t be too careful.
    “But can the San Diego Police Department afford us?” Rox asked after mentioning an hourly fee nearly twice what we charge
     for polls and jury selections and interrogation protocols.
    “I guess so,” Rathbone answered, looking around. “You two live in a motel? Can’t imagine you get much business out here. Just
     a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Suppose you could book conferences for hermits or something, right? Pa-hahm.”
    His laugh reminded me of the sound potatoes make in the microwave when you forget to punch holes in them with a fork and the
     steam inside bursts through the skin. That muffled popping. I didn’t want to explain my unusual choice of living arrangements
     to a detective right then. But his failure to go into shock at Roxie’s proposed fee for our services was alluring. We’d make
     a bundle if Rathbone recommended us as consultants to the SDPD. Besides, I was curious about the deaths of two women I’d already
     demonstrated couldn’t have died naturally when and where and for the reasons they presumably did.
    “This is my place,” I told him. “My dog and I live here alone. Dr. Bouchie lives in San Diego.”
    “You live out here by yourself? Some kind of hermit,” he answered, nodding thoughtfully at my kitchen floor. “This Pergo?”
    The reference was to my floor covering, a laminate manufactured in Sweden. He’d captured my attention.
    “Yeah. Travertine Stone. I thought it picked up the mood of the place, the way it sort of repeats that creamy yellow band
     in the sandstone boulders outside the kitchen window.”
    Rathbone considered the view and then the floor again. His hands hanging at his sides were cluttered with freckles and veins
     that stood out in tree limb patterns.
    “My wife, Annie, she’s got a bug about getting this flooring for the kitchen and the hallway, keeps showing me samples. I
     kind of like Rustic Oak. Did you see that one?”
    “Too dark for here,” I answered. “But I liked it.”
    “Annie’s pushing for a lighter one, too. Planked Natural Pine.”
    “I
almost
went with that one, but then the stone look just seemed—”
    “I don’t believe this,” Roxie muttered to a cluster of cherry tomatoes she was rinsing in the sink. “This isn’t happening.
     Two complete strangers are not standing around in a desert bonding over a vinyl floor.”
    “It’s not vinyl,” Rathbone and I said in unison, bonding over a laminate floor. It was clear that we were probably going to
     get along. An interest in floor covering can do that.
    “You might as well stay for dinner,” Roxie told the detective, smiling and shaking her head. Rox’s braids were done in turquoise
     that week, and Rathbone cocked his head at their pleasant rattling.
    “My sister-in-law, Annie’s younger sister, keeps trying to do her hair like that,” Rathbone said with interest. “I don’t think
     it works if you’re not black. She’s a lawyer up in the Bay Area. International law. Travels a lot. And sure, that’d be fine.
     I need to call Annie and tell her I won’t be home. Mind if I use your phone?”
    “Only if you call and make sure they’re not holding our friend BB,” I told him. “Can you do that first?”
    “You mean Berryman? Sure.”
    I showed Rathbone to the phone in my office/living room and flipped on the TV to muffle his conversation. We Midwesterners
     are nothing if not sensitive to