Read Online Collared For Murder by Annie Knox - Free Book Online Page B

guinea fowl. “And thanks to my dad’s love affair with the bottle, I’ve met some pretty sketchy people in my time.”
    “What about poor Mr. Denford’s death?” my mom asked. I’d filled her in on the big fight between Denford and Pris the night before. “Stealing the collar ornament may have been out of Pris’s comfort zone, but it sounds like she had a real bone to pick with Denford. Between needing money and her public display of animosity toward Phillip Denford, she seems like a prime suspect.”
    “The murder means Pris definitely isn’t the bad guy,” Rena said. “Pris never would have killed Denford that way.”
    “I don’t know,” Dolly responded. “That Pris Olson is a tough cookie. I can see her whacking someone without batting an eye.”
    My practical mother gave her fanciful sister a gentle nudge on the arm. “Dorothy. Whacking? You need to stop it with the true-crime television shows.” She frowned. “But you make a good point about Pris having enough mean in her to kill someone.”
    “True,” Rena said. “I didn’t mean that Pris was above committing murder, but not in the way someone killed Phillip. I don’t see scissors as Pris’s weapon of choice. Too up close. Too bloody. Pris would pick poison. Or shoot someone from far away. Maybe even conk someone over the head with a heavy object. But she wouldn’t get her hands all bloody by stabbing someone.”
    Jack shook his head. “This is all very clever, Rena. But I’ve been doing this for ten years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: when a person is desperate enough, they can do just about anything.”
    *   *   *
    Rena, Jack, Dolly, and my mom all headed for their respective homes. With the doors locked and the dishes done, I pulled out my trusty Singer and sat back at the red table for a sewing session. My mindbuzzed with thoughts about Pris, Phillip Denford, and all the horrible things I’d seen that day, and sewing always calmed me.
    The talk that evening had inspired me to craft a deerstalker hat for dogs, one that would keep the whole head warm while still allowing for ear mobility. Scraps of corduroy and a sherpa fleece I’d used for snug coats the winter before quickly took shape. I had just run the last seam on my prototype and was debating whether to raid the freezer for a pint of cherry chip or go straight to bed when I heard quiet rapping on the glass portion of the front door.
    I looked up, and the warm glow of the porch light revealed Sean Tucker.
    I quickly backstitched three or four stitches to hold my seam, snipped the thread that tethered the hat to the machine, and—as I shuffled to the door—plopped the hat on a dog-shaped mannequin perched on a shelf near the front of the store.
    “Sean! What brings you out so late at night? Do you want some ice cream?”
    “Is that a trick question?” Sean’s face lit up with his lopsided grin as he stepped into the store. “I always want ice cream.”
    It was true. Sean Tucker’d had a raging sweet tooth since I’d first met him in the third grade. I always gave him the trick-or-treat candy that no one in the family wanted—the Mary Janes, the Laffy Taffies, andthe Bit-O-Honeys. The remarkable thing is that he could hoover up all that sugar and remain whippet thin. Even now, he was in his early thirties, and his waistline hadn’t caught up with his candy addiction.
    He followed me into the first-floor kitchen. As I scooped us dishes of ice cream, I studied him out of the corner of my eye. Sean, Rena, and I had been best friends in both middle and high school, our tight bond broken only when Sean decided to declare his love for me and woo me away from my high school sweetheart, Casey Alter. In retrospect, I realized that he’d been right that stormy night, but at the time I was fixated on the happily-ever-after that Casey and I had planned. The event drove a wedge between us that wasn’t removed until nearly a year earlier, when