Wicked Is the Whiskey: A Sean McClanahan Mystery (Sean McClanahan Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

“one big with the black hair, the other small with red hair.”
    “Sorry, haven’t seen them,” he said.
    His eyes darted toward the front window.
    I turned to look. There was nothing there.
    “I'll be closing shortly,” he said.
    My mouth was watering, but I had an uneasy sense.
    “Why not make this a to go order,” I said.
    Wilson got everything packed in a Styrofoam container and a white paper bag. He handed it to me and I paid him.
    “The woman may be in trouble, Mr. Wilson. Can you call me if you see her?”
    I set my card on the countertop, then walked out the door.
    “Have a good day,” said Wilson as he closed the door behind me.
    As I walked down Main Street, I heard a car motor roar. To my right, I saw a black Crown Victoria coming at me.
    I dived onto the sidewalk across the street and tumbled behind a light pole just before the car roared past. The car made a quick turn onto a side street before I could see its plate or its driver. 
    I got to my feet and dusted myself off.
    My meal didn’t fare so well. It was spread all over the sidewalk.
    So that’s what John Preston’s demise was really about, I thought: a conspiracy to keep me from eating.
     

Chapter #9
     
    The Pioneer Pub & Grill sits on a side street in Washington, PA a half block from the Washington County court house — nearly 30 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. It is the establishment of choice for the town’s judges, prosecutors and others in Washington County’s law-enforcement community.
    Long-time Washington County Coroner J.W. Green was a fixture there.
    “Well if it isn’t my favorite pub-owning PI,” he said, his capped teeth glowing brightly as he shouted at me from his regular spot in the back of the restaurant.
    Green, a mortician by trade, owned three funeral homes, a half dozen fast-food restaurants and a chain of coin-operated car-washes. Unlike Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh, the smaller counties surrounding do not require their coroners to be medical doctors, J.W. ran for, and won, every election to his seat going back to the late 1980s.
    “Good to see you, J.W.” I said as I approached him. “The regular?”
    He nodded. I asked the bartender to put a Johnny Walker Red on my tab and an iced tea for myself.
    “To what do we owe this honor?” he said, playing to the cast of regulars sitting on either side of him. 
    “May I have a few private words with you?” I said.
    “Let’s go to my satellite office,” he said leading me back to the billiard room, two glasses of scotch in his hands. He flipped on the light and closed the glass pocket doors shut.
    “I had a visit by a woman this morning who told me she’d visited you this morning.”
    “Yes, a lovely girl,” he said. “She approached me in the hallway as I was leaving the municipal building. I’d initially thought she was Preston’s sister or some distant family member, but she said that wasn’t the case. She wouldn’t tell me how she knew Preston — just that she knew him.”
    “What did you talk about?” I said.
    “She had an odd story to tell. She said he would never take his own life and that she could prove he was murdered. She wanted me to come to her house to show me the evidence?”
    “Your response?”
    “I was taken aback. All of us working on cases involving famous people have calls and visits from unusual people. I was at first disappointed that a lady as lovely as she would fall into that camp, but I have to admit she didn’t seem like an oddball entirely. She seemed very convincing. I told her to take any concerns she had to the Maryville Chief of Police. As you know, all we coroners care about is determining the cause and manner of death. If foul play is involved, that is the business of the police and district attorney’s office.”
    “She didn’t happen to leave any contact information with you?” I said.
    “No, our discussion was brief,” he said. “There was nothing I was able to share with her. And,