Read Online Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery) by SusanWittig Albert - Free Book Online

walk across the alley to the crime scene but decided it wouldbe better to use the chief’s car. It would let the neighbors know that PSPD was on the job—another helpful bit of community relations.
    She drove back around the block onto Pecan, checked the street number for 1117, then pulled in to the curb behind two black-and-whites; a paramedic vehicle, lights flashing; and a white van with
Adams County Crime Scene Team
on the side. She regarded the vehicles with raised-eyebrow interest. Bartlett must have found a reason to call out the county crime-scene unit, which was under the authority of the sheriff and shared by PSPD and the smaller municipalities in the county.
    On the other side of the street, she saw Maude Porterfield’s Ford F-150 pickup truck. Adams County operated under the Inquest Law, an old segment of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure that conferred on justices of the peace the responsibility of determining the cause of death in cases of accident, homicide, or suicide, or where a death occurred under suspicious circumstances. Larger counties were required to operate under the newer medical-examiners law, which—as Judge Porterfield jocularly put it—took the JPs out of the cause-of-death business. Sheila had the feeling that Maude secretly liked being in the cause-of-death business. It kept her abreast of what was going on in Pecan Springs.
    Neighbors were gathered in two or three self-conscious knots on either side of the street, trying not to look too curious as they watched the official comings and goings at the two-story frame house. Whatever had happened here, it was obviously a neighborhood event—one that people would be talking about for quite a while. Sheila took another look. She didn’t see Hark Hibler’s car or anybody from the
Enterprise
. And Pecan Springs was forty-five minutes from both Austin and San Antonio. The TV stations didn’t send a camera unless there was a major disaster. A suicide didn’t qualify.
    Sheila was opening the car door when she thought of something else.Unsnapping her briefcase, she took out a small red notebook and a pen. She glanced at her watch, opened the notebook to a fresh page and noted the address, the date, and the time. She didn’t stop to ask herself why she was doing this.
    As she got out of the car, a commotion rippled through the onlookers. “Hey, it’s the chief!” a man in the nearest group said. In his sixties, with thinning hair, he wore a pink-and-green Hawaiian print shirt and red flip-flops. His beer belly bulged out like a beach ball over green polyester pants. He raised his voice. “Hey, Chief, what’s going on back there? What’s the scoop?”
    “I just got here,” Sheila replied in a friendly tone. Community relations, she reminded herself. It was good for citizens to see their police officers at work. “I haven’t checked with Detective Bartlett yet. He’s in charge.” She went over to the group and put out her hand. “What have you heard, sir?”
    Green Trousers grasped her hand briefly. His was sweating. “Just that somebody’s dead in the kitchen.” He swiped his hand across his shirt front and pointed across the street. “Mr. Kirk, is what I heard.”
    “Lawrence Kirk,” an older woman said excitedly. “He’s really nice—came over and fixed my grandson’s computer when it got this really terrible infection. I live right next door.” She pointed, her tight blue curls bobbing importantly over her ears. “I was pickin’ the last of my spaghetti squash in the backyard when Ruby Wilcox’s sister went in the kitchen and found him. Really, you’d have thought somebody shot
her
. Run out of the door and fell right down the steps.”
    Ruby Wilcox’s sister? Ramona Donahue? That was a surprise. Sheila was about to speak, but Green Trousers beat her to it.
    “Hate to think stuff like this can happen in our neighborhood,” he said.
    “What’re you talkin’ about, Joe?” another woman demanded. “This kinda