Read Online Ding Dong Dead by Deb Baker - Free Book Online

d-o-l-l-s. That fairy doll almost put me over the edge.”
    Gretchen wrapped her fingers tightly through his. “I’ve been thinking about that poor woman’s final moments,” she said. “I can feel them as though they were my own.”
    “Once you see a murder scene it stays with you a long time.”
    Gretchen thought her last image of the victim might be around forever. “I’d like to help, if I can.”
    “Thanks, but you don’t need to worry about my cases. Tell you what,” Matt said. “I’ll figure out who killed Allison Thomasia and you find out more about the ghost in the museum. Our time together is so short these days, let’s not waste it with shoptalk. Ok?”
    One sweet kiss and he was off, leaving Gretchen frustrated and pretty sure that he’d just told her to mind her own business.

11
    The woman at the front door is like an all-terrain vehicle, solid, strong, rugged, in high gear as though she’s had too much coffee. She’s wearing a tentlike yellow top and matching cotton pants and white crew socks with leather sandals. He’s annoyed by her presence this early in the day, having expected an opportunity to check out the hall before anyone arrived. He wants to shout out loud to blow off his building tension, but he’s too smart for that. He holds it in.
    “You just saved the show,” she says all enthusiastic, reaching into his personal space. At first, he thinks she is going to bear-hug him, she’s so excited. So he steps back, dodging, but she’s only extending her hand. He doesn’t want to touch her, but he needs to fit in. They shake. “I’m April,” she says. “And you say you have experience with lighting?”
    He gives her a short nod, and she claps her hands together, like her prayers have been answered.
    “That guy said you were looking for someone,” he says, swinging his head toward the man standing at the street corner. The big guy doesn’t cross the road in either direction. Instead he lights a pipe and loiters at the crosswalk. Who smokes a pipe these days?
    “That’s Mr. B. He owns this banquet hall,” she says, squinting toward the pipe smoker over the top of her reading glasses, the sun hot and bright on her round face. “He lives upstairs. Good thing I mentioned to Mr. B. that we needed someone to do our lights, otherwise he wouldn’t have passed it on to you. What a break for us.”
    “I was an electrician before I retired,” he says. Yeah, right.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Jerome.” He doesn’t try to think of an alias. It doesn’t matter now and it won’t matter later. He smells pipe tobacco, a light aroma of cherries, coming from Mr. B., who is greeting a woman walking by. He should get inside before the man decides to join them and says something to make this April woman suspicious.
    “Why are we still standing here?” she says as though plucking his thoughts from his brain. “Come on in.”
    They enter the building and go down a hall to a banquet room, their footsteps echoing like thunder in a canyon. Dolls and teddy bears are in display cases on a stage; a heap of pink material is on a sewing machine. No one else around but the woman. And a small, nasty creature like a rat, that barrels at him. It snarls.
    If it keeps coming, he’ll kick it. The woman must sense his intention because she grabs it when it rushes by her to attack him.
    “A local theater group is letting us use their stuff,” she says, tucking the animal under an arm and leading him to a corner where lighting equipment is boxed, the flaps open like they looked inside but realized right away that this job was beyond them. One long black cord hangs out of a cardboard box.
    “I better get busy stringing lights and running power.” He doesn’t have a clue how to start, but it can’t be that hard. Hang them over the stage—the hooks are already in place he sees—focus the beams, flick them on and off at the right times. Not rocket science, and he’s a smart guy.
    “Where’s the