Read Online Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear by Sharon Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

The squirrels were only faint impressions moving through the murky plastic. When it came to hunting, Phoebe was a lot like Ginger at a store sale, very focused. The cat probably hadn’t gotten distracted by the other squirrels.
From a far corner of the convention floor, she heard a yowl that chilled her. Phoebe was afraid of something. “Phoebe, Phoebe. I’m here.” Ginger ran in the direction of the cats yowl.
Phoebe stared down from a high window. “Come on down,” Ginger pleaded. No dead squirrel in Phoebe’s mouth. That was a good sign. “Come on, baby. Come on down.”
Phoebe lifted her furry chin and disappeared through the window. The window faced the backside of the Little Italy and Wind-Up Hotels, by the lake. Ginger ran to the door nearest to the window where Phoebe had escaped. Locked. That meant she would have to get a cleaning person willing to open it for her.
She raced back through the connecting hallway to track down Cheryl.

Detective Cynthia Mallory’s mouth watered as she stood in front of door number 515 of the Wind-Up Hotel. “Can you please not wave that thing under my nose?”
The other Cindy, Cindy Jacobson, drew the jelly doughnut toward her chest. “They were free down in the hotel lobby.” She took a bite. “I could have grabbed you one.”
Cynthia Mallory stared with longing at the sugar on the younger detective’s cheek. “That’s not the point. You know I’m doing Atkins. You’re like Jack Sprat’s mean sister.”
The boxy blazer Cindy Jacobson wore didn’t hide that she was the poster child for skinny minnies. “Who’s Jack Sprat?”
“Nursery-rhyme character.” Even before she had decided to do Atkins, food had been a source of tension between them. Jacobson ate constantly and never gained a pound. Depending on the hour, their shift usually involved one trip through a fast-food drive-thru and a stop at a bakery or coffee shop. Mallory carried a Ziploc baggie with deli ham. “Skinny Jack Sprat and his fat wife.”
Jacobson’s eyes were uncomprehending. “Sorry, never heard of the guy. My parents had me reading Shakespeare by the time I was seven.”
Mallory thought about the complete collection of The Andy Griffith Show on DVD she had at home. Just one more way that she and Jacobson were polar opposites. In college, she had thought it was an accomplishment to get through a Shakespeare class without jumping off a building.
Being partners with someone who never had a bad hair day and could eat anything caused her own insecurities to rise to the surface. But she could live with it. Jacobson was the best partner Mallory had ever had in her thirty years as a cop.
“Never mind.” Mallory’s fist hovered over the door. “I dream about cake and fudge at night. I get arrhythmia when I go past a candy shop. Could you please just not eat sugar in front of me?”
Jacobson wiped the red jelly off her mouth and held up the doughnut. “No problem, but may I finish this?”
Mallory nodded. Again, she lifted her hand to knock on the door. “This is a first for us, huh? A missing squirrel.”
“We did have the one lady who lost her champion poodle.” Jacobson took a luscious bite of the doughnut and chewed for a moment. “You remember that?” She licked the sugar off her lips.
Detective Mallory’s mouth watered. Oh the torment. She leaned a little closer to her partner. The aroma of doughnut was intoxicating. “Squirrel abduction. You ever feel like you’ve been sucked into some alternative universe that is being run by cartoons?”
Cindy Jacobson shrugged. “It’s a job.”
“I forgot to check the roster. Was Elmer Fudd on patrol tonight?”
Jacobson laughed. “Could be worse. Could be dealing with all the messy crime down in Vegas. We just get the weird stuff here.”
“Into every life a little weirdness must fall,” Mallory said.
“Lets see if we can get to the bottom of this before my shift is over. The Wind-Up has had a busy day. Spurgen took a jewelry theft