Where Nobody Dies Read Online Free PDF Page B

restaurants.
    â€œI’m five-feet-ten,” Dorinda said finally. “I was five-feet-ten by the age of fourteen. The tallest girl Traverse City ever saw. They used to call me the Jolly Green Giant. I felt like a giraffe. Like my feet were these enormous things I couldn’t stand to look at.” She laughed suddenly and came back to me. “It’s okay now,” she explained. “I don’t mind Ezra’s being shorter than I am. But then …” She shook her head. “I used to wish I could eat a piece of mushroom like Alice and get back to being a regular-sized person again. So one day Linda and Dawn stop in here after shopping. They had these A&S shoe bags and all Linda did the whole time they were here was make these cute little jokes about how big Dawn’s feet were getting. Dawn tried to laugh, but I could see her slipping down into her chair, as though she was trying to shrink herself down to her mother’s size. It was all I could do to keep from telling Linda off. If you ask me, Dawn’s better off without her.”
    â€œShe was a difficult woman,” I agreed, remembering her demanding attitude as a client.
    â€œShe was a bitch,” Dorinda pronounced.
    We meditated on that thought while I downed my coffee and accepted another refill. This was a three-cup day if I’d ever seen one.
    â€œShe made a will,” I said at last. “Marcy hired me as her lawyer for the probate proceedings.” I almost smiled as I recalled my open-mouthed shock of the night before. Not only had Marcy been incredibly businesslike for someone who’d just seen her sister on a slab, but she’d handed me five crisp hundreds as a retainer. I’d tried to look as though clients willingly paid me cash in advance every day of the week.
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like Linda,” Dorinda remarked. “Making a will and all.”
    â€œNo,” I agreed. “She never struck me as a woman who accepted the inevitability of death.” I shrugged. “Maybe she got a package deal with the divorce.”
    â€œI suppose Marcy will keep Dawn with her now,” Dorinda said, but there was a note of doubt in her voice.
    â€œI wish I knew,” I sighed. “I tried to bring it up last night, but all she said was she’d think it over and let me know.”
    â€œWhat about Linda’s mother? Or Brad’s?” Dorinda asked.
    I shook my head. “Linda’s mother’s out. She had major surgery a couple of months ago. She needs help to care for herself, let alone a twelve-year-old. As for Brad’s mother—” I broke off, thinking of the last time I’d seen Ma Ritchie in Family Court. She’d worked herself into hysterics, causing a twenty-minute recess. But that wasn’t the worst thing about Viola Ritchie.
    â€œShe’s a dangerous woman,” I said, knowing it sounded dramatic. “She’s …” I broke off, unable to put words around my profound mistrust of Brad’s sweet-faced, gray-haired mother. “She’s Willy Loman,” I concluded lamely.
    Dorinda, mistress of the non sequitur, nodded knowingly, as though what I’d said had made sense to her.
    â€œShe pumped poor Brad up with hot air and grandiose ambitions, so that the jobs he could get seemed like a giant comedown. Then, when he lost even those menial jobs, she helped him blame everyone but himself. I can see her doing the same thing to Dawn,” I went on, warming to the theme, “convincing her that she’s such a great tennis player that she doesn’t need to bother with silly things like practicing every day.”
    â€œYou really care about Dawn, don’t you?” Dorinda’s steady gray eyes regarded me seriously.
    â€œI just want Marcy to make up her mind, that’s all,” I replied crossly, ignoring Dorinda’s knowing, sympathetic smile.
    All night I’d pictured Dawn, alone in her