Read Online Cancelled by Murder by Jean Flowers - Free Book Online Page B

heavy press would make an effective weapon, I’m thinking. Poor Andy. He must have thought I was nuts looking at him suspiciously. And I wasn’t even working a homicide at the time.”
    Sunni didn’t usually share such feelings with me. I decided to move in while she was in a vulnerable position, having sought solace in my home, ingested my food, and stretched out on my furniture. Bad Cassie.
    â€œDid Barry offer anything useful? Like a clue as to who might have been fighting with Daisy?”
    â€œNo hair or fibers, if that’s what you mean. Who knows what the wind and rain that day might have washed away? He found a trace of a substance that at first he thought was blood, but of course most of it would have been washed away. Turned out not to be blood anyway. Possibly ink. How about that?”
    â€œThat’s something, though. Where was the ink?”
    â€œOn Daisy’s wrist, I believe.”
    â€œCan they tell what it’s from? Like a marker or a regular ballpoint? Or would that even matter? Maybe it could be traced to a particular user, like a specific shop owner, something like that?”
    Sunni shook her head, shrugged in a helpless gesture. “On TV maybe, before the next commercial. The only clear conclusion of our ME’s exam is that Daisy struck or was struck by a hard object, like a rock, and that she put up quite a fight.”
    I shut my eyes against the image of bruises on Daisy’s small body. From the look on Sunni’s face, I thought she might be having the same reaction. I left the room and took a few minutes in the kitchen, refilling our mugs.
    â€œIt must be awful when you don’t have much to start with,” I said.
    Sunni popped up in the seat. “Hey, enough.”
    Good intentions but bad judgment on my part. I gave Sunni an innocent look and held up my hands in surrender.
    â€œWhat did you put in that coffee?” she asked.
    â€œTruth serum,” I said, getting a welcome laugh from her and relieving the tension.
    She lumbered off the chair, looking only slightly better than when she had arrived. “I’d better get going.”
    â€œI can drive you home if you like,” I offered. “And pick you up in the morning. No problem.” Obliging Cassie.
    â€œI’m fine. Thanks anyway.”
    Sunni departed on her own, assuring me she’d drunk enough coffee to keep her awake for the few miles to her house, and leaving me with nothing but a last-minute mention of a spot of red ink to think about.

6
    T o an outsider, it might have seemed like a normal Thursday morning at the post office, with customers lined up, glad to be out of the summer humidity, exchanging complaints (“The line isn’t moving fast enough”; “The grocery store is out of lemon-flavored sparkling water”) and pleasantries (“It’s much cooler this week after the storm”; “Fall TV shows will be starting soon”).
    But my guess was that, like me, most of the residents felt a pall over the town, a heavy cloud bearing the weight of the drastic escalation of bad news that had shaken us, from a possible casualty of the small storm, to the accidental death of a member of the community, to the declared murder verdict in the case of Daisy Harmon. Aunt Tess always said you could smell a storm, even after it had passed, and I thought the observation was never more true than now.
    I suspected it wasn’t just Sunni who looked at everyonewith suspicion today. It was hard to trust any but our closest friends. I recognized a few people from South Ashcot who often came by when their post office lobby was even more crowded than ours. My immediate reaction when I saw the interlopers: Had Sunni thought of looking for motives among those nonresidents of North Ashcot? Maybe one of them was an unsatisfied fabric shop customer. Or someone who was part of an old feud that had resurfaced across town borders?
    I had enough to do,