Read Online Bad To The Bone by Katy Munger - Free Book Online

first time in months.
    "Well, well," I said. "Look who the cat drug
in."
    "I work here," he countered. "What's your
excuse?"
    I started to tell him, then stopped. He knew
Tawny Bledsoe after all, and who knew if it was in the biblical
sense or worse? "Business," I said. "Minor stuff."
    "It's all minor stuff. That's my new motto.
I'm trying to be very Zen about the job." Neither one of us really
heard a word he said.
    Being nose-to-nose finally got to him and he
took a step back, letting his gaze drop to my high-top tennis
shoes. His eyes worked their way up my black thermal stockings to
my open coat and, beneath it, my pale pink mohair miniskirt and
matching angora sweater. "Isn't it a little cold for an outfit like
that?" he asked, staring at the front of my sweater. Okay, so my
personal barometers had popped to attention. It wasn't because of
the cold.
    "Looks like it's warming up," I said,
flashing him my biggest smile. I nodded toward his enthusiastic
trousers. "Polyester blends give you away every time."
    He actually blushed. "You scare me, Casey,"
he admitted unexpectedly.
    "I'll consider that a compliment."
    "You should." We stared at each other for a
moment in silence.
    "You really do have an arrangement worked
out with that boyfriend of yours, don't you?" he finally said.
    "I really do." I paused. "But that doesn't
mean I'm going to arrange things with you."
    "That's cold." He turned away. "And here I
was going to tell you how much I liked you back as a blond."
    "You only like me being taken already," I
called after him. "Which is why, when I stray, it will be with
another cat.”
    He shrugged like he really didn't care and
marched away. He sure was cute when he was angry. And those black
pants of his were a very nice fit.
    There had been a lot of truth in what I said
to him. Bill Butler was the kind of guy who liked his women
married, involved with someone else or otherwise removed from any
possibility of actually becoming entangled with him. I didn't want
to give him the satisfaction of cooperating with his misogynistic
insecurities—even if I was dying for a shot of hips.
    By Monday, the local newspapers had
uncovered enough information on the Cockshutt murder to take up
most of the front page. The first thing that became apparent was
that the RPD had sprung a leak as big as Falls of the Neuse. There
was stuff in the main article that no one had any business knowing.
Dick-Dick and his orange liver lips had struck again.
    "Are you reading what I'm reading?" I yelled
to Bobby. The only sounds I'd heard from the front office since I'd
arrived had been the steady munch of ham biscuits being consumed. I
was once again trying to stick to black coffee in recognition of
the fact that my hormones were steering me toward disrobing in
front of a yet-to-be-identified new guy soon and I wanted to be
ready.
    "Yeah, I'm reading it. Who do you think the
faucet is?"
    "Roland Dick," I yelled back. "Some female
reporter probably stroked his leg and he started spouting off like
Moby Dick."
    "You mean Moby Dick-Dick,"
Bobby yelled back, then started to har-har in that bull seal bellow
of his. I was pleased at his quasi-literary joke. His idea of a
great book is Debbie Does Dallas
Restaurants. It meant I was rubbing off on
him.
    The article had enough case details to
qualify as discovery for the defense team. Protected or not,
Dick-Dick was going to be in hot water once the chief got a gander
at all the beans he had spilled.
    According to the N&O, Boomer Cockshutt
was legally drunk when slain and had bragged earlier to a coworker
that he was meeting a girlfriend that night. Contents of his
stomach showed he had enjoyed dinner less than two hours before his
death: steak, salad, French fries and bourbon. A Southern last
meal, if ever there was one. The gun he'd been killed with had
indeed been wiped clean of prints and dropped into the backseat
after the fatal shot. Forensic tests were now being conducted on
trace fibers and hairs found