Read Online A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2) by Jonni Good - Free Book Online Page B

of the General Baptist church, was the man I saw sitting at the counter when I saw Carol Kramer with Sonje McCrae.
    Carol rubbed her chin with the back of her fist, then let her hand drop to her lap. She put both palms on the arms of her chair and pulled in her feet, getting ready to stand up. I rose first and offered a hand. There was no graceful way to get out of that chair without help.
    “I’d better get the water turned off,” she said. “Harold will go ballistic if I let the pipes freeze.”
    “I took care of it,” Mort said.
    “Oh. Thank you. That was kind.” She picked up her purse. “She didn’t kill herself, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s why you asked if she was depressed, but she was happy. She wasn’t depressed at all.”
    Mort said, “You’re probably right. But some people are good at hiding depression.”
    She shook her head, almost violently. “No. I won’t believe it. I just won’t. You’re going to look into it, aren’t you?” she said. “That’s why you’re here, asking questions.”
    “I have one more question before you go,” Mort said. “Gabe said his mother had something to give you. Would you mind telling us what that was?”
    Her face closed down, and she became almost sullen. “He must have misunderstood,” she said. “Sonje didn’t give me anything. She did pay for my coffee, though.”
    Before she left, she gave me her a different cell phone number. She didn’t want us calling the house again.
    When her car pulled out of the driveway, I asked Mort if the sheriff found Sonje’s cell phone in her car.
    “I’ll ask him when he calls,” he said.
    I decided to take Sonje’s luggage with us, along with Gabe’s. There was nothing in that house for Sonje’s husband to see. Or the sheriff, either, for that matter. While Mort waited, I gathered Sonje’s clothes, picked up the two bags, and went outside to throw them into the back of my truck. They were expensive and the snow in the truck bed probably wasn’t good for them, but Mort wouldn’t have a place to sit if I put them up front.
    On the trip back we didn’t talk much, until Mort said, “When do you think she was lying? When she said she was mad at Gwyneth? Or when she said she made that up, and they were really friends all along?”
    I looked over at him, then back at the road. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Either way, I can’t see how it would give her a motive for killing Sonje. I would like to know what Sonje gave her, though. It must be important, or she wouldn’t lie about it.”
    “Yeah. Or she’s so used to lying to her husband that it’s become a habit, and she lies even when she doesn’t need to.”
    “That’s another thing,” I said. “I can see why she lied to Harold. He doesn’t have any right to choose her friends. But why would she tell other people in town that she was mad at Sonje? That doesn’t make any sense.”
    “I can remember people talking about it, back when it happened. I wasn’t all that interested, though. I didn’t pay much attention.”
    The half-mile drive back to town didn’t take long, but I pictured Gabe, a twelve-year old kid, carrying a baby and wearing tennis shoes and no hat or gloves, trudging through the snow at the side of the road right before dawn. It made my head hurt, just thinking about it.
    It was so dark in the storm that Angie had her neon sign turned on at the front of the diner when I drove across the bridge. I checked my watch—still only fifteen minutes to ten.
    I pulled into the parking lot in front of the museum and parked between Sam’s red Silverado and his snowmobile. His pickup wasn’t there when we left to see Carol, so Sam and Gabe must have gone by Randy Johnson’s house to pick it up on their way back from taking Molly out tracking. All of the snow on the mammoth was gone, blown off by the wind.
    Mort went into the museum to get warm, but I had a few questions for Angie. I headed across the