Where Nobody Dies Read Online Free PDF

had to go home on Sunday nights that he’d hold me and cry. Mom never cried.”
    Epitaph for Linda Ritchie. Mom never cried. Would she, I wondered, have cried if Brad had taken her daughter away from her? Or would she have found solace in the embrace of Congressman Lucenti?
    That thought led quickly to another one. Had Brad’s obvious jealousy of Lucenti been the final straw, the motive for Linda’s murder?
    Dawn was still arguing her case. “But if Daddy meant to take me to Florida,” she said earnestly, “then he had no reason to kill Mom.”
    I remembered my promise to tell Dawn nothing but the truth. I looked her straight in the eyes and gave my answer. “No,” I lied, my voice steady. “He had no reason.”

3
    If I’d had a boss, I’d have called in sick. Since I was the boss, I told myself not to be a damned fool. Then I hauled myself out of my loft bed, hit the shower, and took my hangover down to the Morning Glory.
    I hadn’t made my own breakfast since my old friend Dorinda had opened the place six months earlier. She’d been talking about running her own restaurant for three years or so, but only after I bought the brownstone did the idea really seem feasible. She’d rented my ground floor and had been doing a steady business ever since. Any day now, New York magazine was going to write her up and I wouldn’t be able to get a stool to myself.
    Dorinda herself stood behind the counter, her thick, wheat-colored hair braided into a single pigtail. She wore a hand-appliquéd apron; her Lassie’s-mother look. She handed me a steaming mug of coffee without a word, knowing better than to expect conversation from me in the morning.
    I drank the coffee quickly, letting it warm me from the inside out, waiting for that caffeine rush I’m convinced starts my blood moving every day. As I handed it back to Dorinda for a refill, I pointed to the hand-lettered sign over the counter: Warm your cockles , it read, with a cheese-and-hot-pepper omelet . “With rye toast,” I added, as Dorinda walked over to the stove and started breaking eggs.
    The hot peppers burned away some of the fog, and by the time the breakfast crowd had thinned, I was capable of speech. Dorinda took away my plate, then came back, poured more coffee, and murmured, “I heard about Linda.”
    â€œYeah,” I replied. “Tough business.” I kept my voice low, murder not being very good breakfast conversation.
    â€œI heard they arrested Brad,” she went on.
    â€œWhat!” My voice rose and I attracted curious stares. Dropping my voice again, I asked, “Where the hell did you get that, and me with the cops all night?”
    â€œEzra told me,” she replied. Ezra Varshak was the reason she could afford the Morning Glory. After a lifetime of relationships with exciting losers, Dorinda had finally latched onto a winner. A man with money, eager to invest it in a vegetarian luncheonette in Cobble Hill. Since the place both fed me and helped pay my mortgage, I thoroughly approved. “He heard it on the all-news radio,” she explained.
    â€œPoor Dawn,” I whispered. “I wonder if she knows yet. I was with her last night,” I explained, looking into Dorinda’s concerned eyes.
    â€œHow did she take it?”
    â€œLinda’s death? Not too badly, considering. What really bothered her was thinking about Brad’s arrest.”
    â€œI can relate to that,” Dorinda replied. The bitterness in her voice made me raise my eyebrows in a question I didn’t have to put into words.
    â€œOkay, so I didn’t like her,” Dorinda went on crossly. “I didn’t like her attitude and I didn’t like the way she treated Dawn.” She turned toward her front window, where the sun filtered through the potted herbs that hung there, fragrant substitutes for the boring spider plants that decorated more conventional