Read Online 3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse by Lois Winston - Free Book Online

poured him back into his resting place.”
    “I’ll fix the urn. You pick up Daddy before Catherine the Great uses him for a litter box.”
    “She wouldn’t dare! She’s too well trained.”
    Right . As if on cue, Catherine the Great sauntered into the kitchen, looked around, then headed straight for Daddy. I grabbed the dustpan just as she was about to paw what remained of my father. “Let’s not tempt her. Pour Daddy into a plastic bag until I fix his urn.”
    “You’ll do it right away, won’t you, dear? The thought of my darling Harold sealed up in a plastic bag is more than I can bear.”
    She preferred Daddy sitting in a dustpan? “After I get rid of this headache.”
    I collapsed into a kitchen chair and placed the now tepid glass of water back on my forehead. A second later the doorbell rang. I contemplated ignoring it, except that one of the boys may have forgotten his key. So I took a quick sip of the water and dragged my exhausted butt back to the foyer while Mama carefully spooned Daddy into a Ziploc.
    On my way through the living room, I glanced out the window and found a gray minivan parked at the curb in front of my house. Before opening the door, I checked the peephole. A tall, thin man with a head of shaggy brown hair in need of a trim stood on my stoop. He wore a pair of wrinkled khaki trousers and an equally wrinkled blue and white pencil-striped, short-sleeved sports shirt. Something about him struck me as vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
    “Is this the home of Lucille Pollack?” he asked when I opened the door.
    I checked his hands before answering. No envelope. Hopefully, that meant he wasn’t a process server. Lucille had keyed a Beemer prior to her stroke. The owner threatened to sue her. Not that she had anything besides her monthly social security check and a meager pension from her days as the editor of The Worker’s Herald , the weekly newspaper of the American Communist Party. “Yes, but she’s not here.”
    “Are you Anastasia Pollack?”
    “I am.” The Beemer owner couldn’t sue me, could he? “And you are?”
    He held out his hand. “Ira Pollack. Your half-brother. I’m so very happy to meet you.”
    I stared at his extended hand, then his face. Finally, it hit me. Give the man a haircut, add a few years and a dozen pounds or so, and Ira Pollack could be a not-so-dead ringer for Dead Louse of a Spouse. How could I not have noticed immediately? “I believe you’ve made a mistake,” I said.
    “Isidore Pollack was your father, wasn’t he?”
    “Of course Isidore Pollack wasn’t her father!” Mama strode across the living room to join me. “I should know who fathered my only child.”
    Ira stared at Mama, a look of total confusion spreading across his face. “ You’re Lucille Pollack?”
    “I should say not!”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, I—”
    I grabbed Ira Pollack’s still extended hand, his sweaty palm making me immediately regret my action. “As I was about to say, I’m not Lucille’s daughter. I’m her daughter-in-law, and this,” I nodded toward Mama, “is my mother, not Lucille. My mother-in-law recently had surgery and is currently in a rehab facility.”
    “That’s too bad. I would have liked to speak with her.”
    I doubted Lucille would feel likewise. “Maybe once she returns home.”
    “I have a half-brother, then?” asked Ira. “I guess that makes you my half-sister-in-law.” His sweaty palm still gripping my hand, he vigorously pumped my arm. “I’m so very happy to meet you, and I can’t wait to meet your husband. Is he home?”
    “Perhaps you should come in.” I slipped my hand from his and led him into the living room. With my left hand I motioned him toward one of the two overstuffed easy chairs that flanked the bay window while I surreptitiously swiped my right hand dry across my denim skirt. “Would you like a cold drink?”
    “I wouldn’t mind a glass of ice water if it’s no trouble. Kind of brutal outside