Read Online A Killer's Kiss by William Lashner - Free Book Online

said.
    “Then maybe we should stay out.”
    “No, thank you,” she said, unwrapping the tape. “I’ve lived in this house for more than thirty years. I won’t have anyone telling me where I can and can’t go. This way.”
    She pushed open the doors, turned on the lights, led me into a spacious den with wood-paneled walls and beamed ceilings. It smelled a little damp, and a little rusty, and a little ill, like a sickness had come over the place. A large mahogany desk was set by the windows, a round green-felt poker table stood in the corner, and a huge flat-screen television hung over the marble fireplace. Surrounding the fireplace was a wall of bookshelves, covered with trophies on which little wrestlers were posed like bullies with back conditions, ready to strike. The walls and furniture were so highly polished the whole room gleamed. It would have been a room fit for Architectural Digest if it weren’t for the patches of dark powder over the walls and windows or the sprawled squat figure outlined on the bloodstained carpet.
    “That’s where I found the doctor,” said Gwen. “Just like that. I wanted to clean up the blood, but they wouldn’t let me. I’m not going to wait much longer.”
    “Where was he shot from?”
    “Over there,” said Gwen, pointing to the end of the bookshelf in the rear corner of the room.
    One of the wooden panels beneath the books in that corner was slightly off kilter. I stepped over to it, gently pulled. The false panel swung open to reveal a gray metal safe.
    “They got that open this morning,” said Gwen. “Brought a man in from Ohio to do it. There were some papers, some baseball cards, stuff. But no money, when there was always money. Everyone’s wondering where the money got off to. And then, of course, the gun.”
    “What gun?”
    “He kept a gun in the safe, but that was gone, too.”
    “Was that the gun that killed him?”
    “That’s what they think.”
    “And they really think that Julia killed him?”
    “They do.”
    “What do you think, Gwen? Did she?”
    “Course she didn’t. Why on earth do you think I let you in here and stuffed you full of pecan pie?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I made that one for Norman. With the last of the pecans, too, so he’ll be eating apple until I get a new batch. But when I saw you at the door, I knew right away the last pecan pie was going to you.”
    “I’m missing something here.”
    “I remember seeing Tony Taylor play at Shibe Park,” said Gwen. “Lithe and handsome, skin like polished ebony. He was dreamy. You, sir, are no Tony Taylor. But I knew who you were as soon as I opened the door, Mr. Carl. The missus had tracked your adventures in the paper over the years. We used to laugh at the stories. And then she mentioned you more recently. In fact, you were being discussed in the argument last night before Dr. Denniston was killed.”
    I looked at the figure outline on the carpet. “Really? That’s not good.”
    “Not for you, and I guess not for the doctor neither, the way it turned out. I figured you were here to help Mrs. Denniston, and so I decided to help you. You don’t think I thought you were an old friend from Princeton, did you?”
    “Yes, actually.”
    “My mama didn’t raise no fool, Mr. Carl.”
    “Mine obviously did.”
    “Princeton.” She shook her head. “But the missus called when they first took her to the police station and said that you were going to help her, and so I decided to help you.”
    “With the pie.”
    “There’s not much a dose of Karo and molasses can’t help. So, Mr. Carl, is there anything else you want to know?”
    I looked around the room, thought about it for a moment. “I heard the alarm was activated when you came back last night.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Who knew the code?”
    “The doctor and the missus. Me, of course. A few others. That Mr. Swift. A couple handymen that worked on the house. It wasn’t a well-kept secret.”
    “Clarence Swift had the