Read Online Dead Man Walker by Duffy Brown - Free Book Online Page A

got out my wallet fished around in the back and pulled out a mangled, half smoked cigarette, and lit up. “Did you know?” I asked Big Joey as I handed him the remains of a bad habit we both worked so hard to break.
    â€œSuspected. The man went out of his way to mess with you. Had to be a reason. You both drink doubled oaked and have a thing for peach-and-blueberry pie.” Big Joey took a drag off the cigarette and handed it back. “And there’d been talk for years how Conway got it on with your mamma then married Lady Got-Rocks. He paid your mamma off—”
    â€œAnd she left me with Grandma Hilly and took off for Vegas never to be seen again. Do I know how to pick parents or what?”
    â€œYou gonna make it?” Big Joey asked in a low, even voice.
    I put my hand on his shoulder. “Got this far, didn’t we.” I handed Joey back the cigarette as Reagan pulled up next to the Chevy on a pink moped—least I thought it was Reagan. I wasn’t sure till she pulled off her helmet and shook out her blonde hair, and that was definitely the best thing to happen to me all day.
    She snagged the cigarette out of my fingers, took a puff, coughed enough to bring up a lung, her face red, eyes watering, bent over at the waist.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I stood up and pounded her on the back, hoping she’d survive, the last of the cigarette now in the street with the suds. Well, dang.
    â€œYou and Big Joey were having a moment and I felt left out,” she wheezed. “I hate feeling left out.” She swiped at her eyes. “I always wanted to be part of your gang.”
    And just when I was sure nothing would ever be normal again, it rode in on a pink scooter. Joey laughed, tears rolling down his cheeks as I said, “It’s never going to happen, Blondie.”
    â€œDon’t call me Blondie.” She looked at me, her blue eyes dead serious. “Are you okay?
    â€œHe is now.” Big Joey ruffled Reagan’s hair and looked at me. “Joseph Jefferson. Got it?” He kissed Reagan on the head and took off.
    â€œWho’s Joseph Jefferson?” Reagan’s wheezing faded to splutters.
    â€œA friend. How’d you find out about tonight?”
    â€œAre you kidding, everybody knows. Steffy Lou’s housekeeper’s the CNN of Savannah and a whiz at Twitter. What that girl can pack into a hundred-and-forty characters is amazing. You should see the picture of Tucker sloshed in the hallway. I think she’s selling it to one of those tabloids so she can retire. But I didn’t come here to chat. You got a problem.”
    â€œDid . . . did you know about me and Conway?”
    â€œI suspected, and there’s been talk for years.”
    â€œWhy the heck didn’t I suspect?”
    Reagan gave me a
get real
look and, truth be told, she was right. I’d heard the talk; seen the Altoids in Conway’s desk; made the booze connection, the pie connection; and it’s probably why I bought that blue-and-yellow lamp in my office window, a little subconscious reminder that I
did
know.
    â€œI think the Conway thing is like getting an F on a test,” Reagan said dragging me back to us on the sidewalk. “You don’t want to believe it’s true and you probably knew it was coming all along, you just didn’t want to think about it till you absolutely had to.”
    â€œAn F?”
    â€œConway, not you. It’s part of your life, you’ll deal.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And I mean like deal right now. Mamma sent me here because Ross called her. In about ten minutes Ross is coming to arrest you for Conway’s murder. She’s at Cakery Bakery right now trying to stall but even Ross can eat only so many doughnuts.”
    â€œWaitaminute.”
    â€œYou don’t have a minute. You gotta go.”
    I ran my hand through my buzzed hair. “Me kill Conway? I didn’t even