Read Online Drop Dead on Recall by Sheila Webster Boneham - Free Book Online Page A

as is his divine right. He took the morning’s tribute and trotted to a patch of lawn, where he chewed a bite of the herb, slid the top of his skull through the leaves, then his ears, neck, shoulders, and back, and began the whole sequence again.
    Goldie turned to me and said, “I need to run to the co-op for some flour and stuff. Want to go?” Her face was pale in the morning light, and the dark circles I’d noticed the last couple of weeks still hunkered under her eyes. I was about to say yes, thinking I could press her about her health if I had her captive in the car, when my phone rang. A pang in my gut reminded me that I hadn’t returned Detective Stevens’ call. I nodded at Goldie and spoke into the receiver, expecting a summons to police headquarters.
    It was Suzette. She wanted to have some pictures taken of Fly, so we set a time and I turned off the phone.
    “Actually, I wanted to leave a note for Pip’s owner at his house. He’s not answering the phone and the machine is off. I want to be sure he has my number. We can do both.”

17
    I bagged a half pound each of organic rolled oats (for homemade dog biscuits, the only thing I bake) and licorice all-sorts (for me) from the bulk bins at the Three Rivers Food Co-op. I was adding up the price tags on the stuff in my cart as I rounded the end of the aisle and pulled up just short of a crash. “Oh! Tom! What a surprise!”
    Tom Saunders stood in front of a display of garden seed packets. “Janet! Hey! What’s up?”
    “Running some errands. You? You’re not working today?” I caught myself wishing for the second time in so many days that I’d taken time for a dab of makeup this morning, at least a bit of shadow and mascara. I could have changed out of my tea-stained apparel, too. You slob , scolded my guardian angel. Get real , countered the little demon. If you’re looking for a fashion plate, it ain’t me, babe. “I’m on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule this semester.” I remembered then that I’d heard he was a professor, although I didn’t know whether he was attached to the Purdue or Indiana University side of the joint Fort Wayne campus.
    “What do you teach?”
    “Anthropology.”
    “Oh.” I could have sworn someone told me he worked with plants. “Somehow I got the idea you were in botany.”
    “I am, sort of.” He grinned. “Ethnobotany.”
    Recalling his comment about commercial drugs, I would have pursued the topic, but Goldie rounded the end of the aisle, asking something about which essential oil I liked better for a spring potpourri, lilac or lily-of-the-valley. She stopped and got a tricky twinkle in her eyes when she saw Tom. I introduced them, and she offered her hand. He looked a tad startled when she held on longer than strictly polite and gazed into his eyes. Then they grinned at one another, and she let him go.
    “It’s great to see you, Janet.” That struck me funny since he was still grinning at Goldie. “Unfortunately, I have a faculty meeting in half an hour.” He and Goldie both nodded, as if they shared a secret. Then Tom turned his baby browns to me, reached out and squeezed my shoulder, making several parts of my body contract. “See you soon.”
    As we watched him walk to the check-out line, Goldie leaned into me and said, “Not bad!”
    “Yeah, I guess.” My face was heating up again. “I barely know him.”
    “Ha! But you’d like to!”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    “Me? Silly? You’re the one who’s drooling! And frankly, it’s about time. They aren’t all like Cheat.”
    “Chet.” Goldie and I had played the Cheat/Chet game for years. “It has nothing to do with Chet.” She was right, of course. It had everything to do with cheatin’ Chet and his escapades. “I’m just not interested. I like my freedom.” And my sanity, credit rating, and bank balance, modest though it is.
    Goldie rolled her eyes and made a rude sound.
    “Oh yeah?” I couldn’t come up with anything intelligent