When The Spirit Moves You (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

if the town lock-up provided Calamine lotion for its prisoners.
    #
    Brenda whacked a jumbo egg on the side of the hot skillet, then dropped its contents into the spattering butter. “Of all the stupid, lame-brained ideas . . . .”
    “ Hey, as a person with a brain injury, I resent that remark,” I said, and took a sip of my coffee. It was nine-thirty and I’d had to sit in jail until first thing that morning, waiting for a judge to set bail and for Richard to come and collect me. He’d been smart and ducked behind an arborvitae when the cop arrested me the night before. I didn’t hold a grudge. Why should he get in trouble for one of my funny feelings? And I promised to pay him back . . . one day . . . for making my bail.
    The toast popped up and Brenda grabbed it, first slathering butter and then raspberry jam on it before depositing it on my plate.
    “ Hey, what about me?” Richard complained.
    I picked up one of the slices and dropped it on his plate. He nodded his thanks, scooped it up and took a bite—quite satisfied.
    “ And what’s next on your agenda?” Brenda asked, sounding thoroughly annoyed.
    I took another sip of my coffee before answering. “What I should have done first. Research the house. See who owns it. My guess is the dead guy. I’ve got a feeling Madam Zahara and her son have been squatting for some time.”
    “ How can you prove that?” Richard asked, and took another bite of his toast.
    “ First I’d need to find out if the real owner has been seen in the past few years, which is what I should have done before we went blundering over there last night. I’ll start with the county tax records to see who owns that house and who’s been paying the taxes for the last few years. Next I’ll see what else I can find out about the owner.”
    “ Who says it was the owner that died? Couldn’t it have been one of Madam Zahara’s customers?”
    I nodded. “If that’s the case, I might be looking at a dead end from the start. My gut’s telling me there’s a paper trail to follow—but first I have to go looking for it.”
    “ Be my guest,” Richard said, polishing off the last of his toast.
    “ When I’ve pulled it all together, perhaps you’d like to be a witness when I present my evidence.”
    “ And just who are you going to present it to?” he asked.
    I picked up my cup. That was a good question. Clearly confronting Madam Zahara hadn’t done the trick. But was a cop going to believe me?
    Probably not.
    But then I did have a friend at The Buffalo News . He might want to play with a missing-person story. And if he set the ball rolling, the Clarence PD might just pick it up.
    I’d just have to wait and see.
    But first, breakfast.
    #
    Since I wasn’t scheduled to work, I spent the rest of that day on my computer in air-conditioned comfort while Brenda and Richard took off for the country club to sweat their way through a few rounds of golf.
    First, thanks to the fact that the Erie County tax records were posted online, I found out the property on Route 5, which was also known as Main Street, was owned by one Fred Butterfield. Next up, I looked for every Fred Butterfield I could find, in case the owner was an absentee landlord. There were four of them in the greater Buffalo area. I had no idea how long the guy in the plaid shirt had been dead, so I wasn’t sure which one I was looking for—at least at first. I discounted the one who was ninety-six and another who was six years old. That left two.
    I Googled the name and came up with over five million, one hundred and eighty thousand results (in less than 2 seconds—not bad). I narrowed that down by adding Buffalo, NY to the search parameters, and winnowed it down to a mere seventy-two. It took another twenty minutes to go through that list. I found hits on only one of the guys on the tax records, who’d been a football sensation back in high school. Next stop: Facebook.
    I had to go through a whole page of men by that name