Read Online Cockatiels at Seven by Donna Andrews - Free Book Online

lot. Stop for ice cream if you’ve a mind to.”
    “Yes, sir,” Sammy said. He moved around so he could take Timmy’s hand with his left, to keep him as far from the gun as possible.
    “Fred, you want to go along, help Sammy?” the chief said, turning to the remaining Camcop. It was a question, not an order, but I could see Fred was frowning and digging in his heels. “Might be good to have another officer along, if the kid happens to let slip any information.”
    “Yes, sir!” Fred’s face cleared, and he strode off looking very polished and military, especially compared with Sammy, whose gangly frame was contorted as he tried to stoop down so his hand was at toddler level.
    “I gather all this has something to do with Karen,” I said, gesturing to the herd of police vehicles.
    “Ms. Walker’s a close friend of yours?” The chief had taken out his notebook. And he was looking at me with suspicion. More suspicion than usual. Of course, usually all he suspected me of was snooping around and interfering with one of his investigations. This time . . .
    “She’s a friend, yes. I wouldn’t say a close friend. I hadn’t seen her in months.”
    “And yet she left her child with you.”
    “Close enough at one time that it didn’t seem too odd leaving him with me for a little while—that’s what she said, a little while, and it was clearly some kind of emergency. I assumed maybe an hour or two. But thatwas at eight a.m. yesterday. Around noon I started calling her, and not getting an answer, so I thought I’d come over today and see if I could find out anything.”
    He scribbled away in silence.
    “Look, what’s wrong?” I asked. “Has something happened to Karen?”
    “I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.
    “Then she’s not—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to say the word “dead.” I didn’t even want to think it.
    “We haven’t found a body, if that’s what you mean,” the chief said. “The place was broken into last night, and has been pretty thoroughly ransacked. Any chance you’d be willing to take a look around, see if anything’s been taken?”
    “I’m willing, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very useful,” I said. “I didn’t even know she lived here. I went over to the bungalow she used to live in, on Hawthorne Street. That’s 125 Hawthorne Street,” I added, anticipating the chief’s question.
    “Bit of a comedown from Hawthorne Street,” he said, glancing up over his shoulder at the College Arms.
    I nodded. The town of Caerphilly didn’t have much in the way of bad neighborhoods, but if there was anyplace within the town precincts that would make me surreptitiously click my door lock button before I drove through it, this two-or three-block stretch of Stone Street would be it.
    “You might want to talk to the woman who moved into her old house,” I said. “I don’t usually think of myself as a very menacing presence, but she was afraid to open her door to me at first. I had to use Timmy to lull her suspicions, and I get the idea some pretty unsavorycharacters have turned up there looking for Karen.”
    The chief scribbled some more.
    “Just how do you know Ms. Walker?” he asked.
    “She was one of the first friends I made when I came to town,” I said. “The first who wasn’t really Michael’s friend. And I got the feeling all of them were a little wary of me.”
    “Wary?” the chief repeated. I had to smile, because the word rather accurately described his usual attitude toward me.
    “Well, they didn’t know how long I’d be around—we were just dating then. And most of them were faculty or faculty spouses, and sometimes the college gets a little suffocating, you know?”
    He nodded.
    “I met her when I went by the college accounting department to drop off some form Michael kept forgetting to turn in,” I went on. “Karen works there. At least she did work there. We started talking, and hit it off. She invited me for coffee. She helped