Read Online Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Jerusha Jones - Free Book Online Page B

also notable that he called you to tell me about my truck.”
    “Forty-eight,” Clarice shouted. “Falcons, eagles, ospreys, scrub jays, starlings, robins, and whatsits-whosits flittery things. Oh, and ducks. I am paying attention.”
    “The whatsits-whosits were probably ruby-crowned kinglets,” Emmie said. “I saw one the other day. Or maybe bushtits if they were in a flock. They’re so cute and tiny.”
    Clarice spread her palms in a gesture of irritated supplication. She doesn’t really do cute or tiny. In fact, she doesn’t really do wildlife either, so it was a wonder she’d recalled so many avian species names. Gus had certainly rubbed off on her, in a positive way. But I was a little worried about what might come out of her mouth next.
    “So,” I blurted, “guess who’s starting school, officially, on Monday?”
    Clarice scowled at the sudden change in subject, but it was Emmie’s expression that gave me the most delight. Her big golden-brown eyes got even bigger and very hopeful.
    “I think you’re too old for school,” she whispered toward Clarice, “so it must be me. Is it me?” She was hopping now. “Me?”
    I nodded, bouncing with mostly silent chuckles, and quickly took Emmie by the hand for a self-imposed exile in the attic. There are facts, and then there are facts that should never, ever be said out loud. Which I’m sure Emmie will learn in school.
     
    oOo
     
    The attic basically functions as my think tank. I pinned the map on loan from Hank to the wall. Then I stuck more pins in the locations where Skip had either been spotted or from which he’d sent gifts—San Antonio, Texas; Luling, Texas; and Silt, Colorado.
    The map was bordered by all fifty state flowers and state birds. Emmie settled on the floor beneath the map, copying the Washington state bird, the American goldfinch, into her notebook with her colored pencils. She was also flipping her loose tooth back and forth with her tongue, inhaling in a sort of semi-whistle through the gap. Six-year-old priorities. I cringed and continued with my own work.
    Skip’s visit to Luling looked like a side trip, an afterthought. But an easy-to-identify landmark—a water tower painted like a watermelon—had been in the photo behind Skip, and I couldn’t get past the idea that including it in the Polaroid shot had been intentional. Maybe just to let me know he was on the move.
    Take I-35 north to the outskirts of Kansas City, then I-70 west and you end up in Denver, then on to the tiny town of Silt. Skip was using major highways, but seemed to be holing up in out-of-the-way places—at least the ones he’d let me know about. Which is exactly what I’d done too, as soon as he’d disappeared—found a rural, leave-me-alone spot next to an interstate freeway.
    I chewed my lip and pondered this innate hideout tendency. Was it common to criminals? Why had I instinctively followed the same procedure? Clarice had given me Mayfield’s address, but I couldn’t blame it on her. I’d thought it was an excellent idea at the time.
    And still did. It was almost as if Skip had purchased the abandoned poor farm for this very purpose. A sort of refuge for the boys’ camp, and now for me.
    A refuge with a dead mobster secretly buried on it. That definitely threw a wrench in the works.
    One of the phones in my omnipresent tote bag rang. I dumped everything out and found it.
    “Nora?” Arleta said.
    “Oh, no,” I murmured.
    “It’s not too bad. Your dad’s safe. We always knew where he was because of his ankle monitor. But it took a while for Antonio to coax him out of the hedge. He has some scrapes on his face and arms.”
    “A hedge?” I eased my creaking joints into the chair behind the wobbly desk. “What was he doing in a hedge?”
    “It’s actually pretty logical. Alzheimer’s patients like sidewalks or other obvious paths. They know, deep in the more instinctual parts of their brains, that sidewalks go somewhere, so they’ll