Read Online Elizabeth Zelvin - Bruce Kohler 04 - Death Will Save Your Life by Elizabeth Zelvin - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Zelvin
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said, “Can I have your business card? You never know, I might write a book some day.”
Jojo’s pained expression showed what he thought of that idea. But I held out my hand and kept it out until he took a card from a brushed steel case and forked it over. If we could figure out how he might have done it, we’d know where to find him.
Over the next couple of days, it began to feel as if we’d spent a year at Woo-Woo Farm and might not ever get away. I went with Honey to an ACOA meeting in town, where we saw Lorenzo exchanging more-than-fellowship hugs with the town librarian. We knew she was the librarian because small-town meetings are a lot less anonymous than meetings in New York City. We knew she wasn’t his wife because Jimmy visited the library to get online and saw a picture of her husband and kids at the checkout desk. The kids looked like her, and he recognized the husband as one of the morris dancers at the Midsummer bash.
Barbara signed up for a reflexology session with Lorenzo to pump him about his whereabouts that night after the ceremony ended. He and the librarian might have seized the occasion of her husband being occupied and in the public eye—literally with bells on—to go off and make love under the stars. If Madhouse had caught them at it and threatened to make trouble, they might have brained him with a paddle. But Barbara achieved nothing but nirvana for her feet, as she assured us later. Lorenzo wasn’t talking.
Jimmy went to an AA meeting in town. Both he and Barbara tried to talk me into going along, but I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Honey. I couldn’t imagine where the thing with her was going, but I liked being there. It felt like I was getting a do-over of the teenage innocence I’d short-circuited at fourteen when Jimmy and I discovered alcohol. Both of us believed that we’d been drunks from the first exhilarating slug from a 40-ounce bottle of Colt 45. Jimmy told Barbara and me that we wouldn’t believe who he’d run into at the meeting, but he wouldn’t tell us who it was. Jimmy takes anonymity very seriously. Barbara said that if it was someone we suspected of the murders, he had to tell us, but he only laughed.
Honey’s hotshot lawyer, who’d had less of a problem transferring his allegiance from Melvin than she’d expected, found her a good criminal lawyer who finally talked Callaghan, or maybe his bosses, into letting her go back to the city to start sorting out Melvin’s affairs. She was apologetic about leaving me, not that I felt entitled in any way. I told her to do what she had to do and not worry about it.
I was thinking about Honey, murder, and what to do with the rest of my life as I picked my way along a mossy trail to Contemplation Pond. Three pools of subtly harmonious proportions reflected the eternal yet evanescent sky to create a numinous communion with the higher self. It sez here. There was a bronze plaque. Water lilies floated on the still water. The deep, retching croaks of the bullfrogs for which the Pond was famous marred the serenity, if you asked me. I wondered if deep listening would help. I sat down on a rock near the pond and contemplated the hell out of those frogs until the croaks began to form a pleasing continuo.
I hadn’t heard from Honey since she’d left the Farm. Was she really the sweet, guileless woman I was so attracted to? Could she possibly be the gold-digger Jojo and Annabel thought she was? Had she used me as a smokescreen? It didn’t take much to make me doubt myself.
I was no longer alone. I felt the faintest breath of air move the little hairs on the back of my neck. I unfolded myself and squinted in the bright light to see who it was.
Feather stood in the center of a circular flagged patio, slicing and slashing the air with what looked like a samurai sword. I’d never seen anyone look so focused, every sinew in motion as she flowed from pose to pose. So much for her being too wimpy to murder
Jojo’s pained expression showed what he thought of that idea. But I held out my hand and kept it out until he took a card from a brushed steel case and forked it over. If we could figure out how he might have done it, we’d know where to find him.
Over the next couple of days, it began to feel as if we’d spent a year at Woo-Woo Farm and might not ever get away. I went with Honey to an ACOA meeting in town, where we saw Lorenzo exchanging more-than-fellowship hugs with the town librarian. We knew she was the librarian because small-town meetings are a lot less anonymous than meetings in New York City. We knew she wasn’t his wife because Jimmy visited the library to get online and saw a picture of her husband and kids at the checkout desk. The kids looked like her, and he recognized the husband as one of the morris dancers at the Midsummer bash.
Barbara signed up for a reflexology session with Lorenzo to pump him about his whereabouts that night after the ceremony ended. He and the librarian might have seized the occasion of her husband being occupied and in the public eye—literally with bells on—to go off and make love under the stars. If Madhouse had caught them at it and threatened to make trouble, they might have brained him with a paddle. But Barbara achieved nothing but nirvana for her feet, as she assured us later. Lorenzo wasn’t talking.
Jimmy went to an AA meeting in town. Both he and Barbara tried to talk me into going along, but I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Honey. I couldn’t imagine where the thing with her was going, but I liked being there. It felt like I was getting a do-over of the teenage innocence I’d short-circuited at fourteen when Jimmy and I discovered alcohol. Both of us believed that we’d been drunks from the first exhilarating slug from a 40-ounce bottle of Colt 45. Jimmy told Barbara and me that we wouldn’t believe who he’d run into at the meeting, but he wouldn’t tell us who it was. Jimmy takes anonymity very seriously. Barbara said that if it was someone we suspected of the murders, he had to tell us, but he only laughed.
Honey’s hotshot lawyer, who’d had less of a problem transferring his allegiance from Melvin than she’d expected, found her a good criminal lawyer who finally talked Callaghan, or maybe his bosses, into letting her go back to the city to start sorting out Melvin’s affairs. She was apologetic about leaving me, not that I felt entitled in any way. I told her to do what she had to do and not worry about it.
I was thinking about Honey, murder, and what to do with the rest of my life as I picked my way along a mossy trail to Contemplation Pond. Three pools of subtly harmonious proportions reflected the eternal yet evanescent sky to create a numinous communion with the higher self. It sez here. There was a bronze plaque. Water lilies floated on the still water. The deep, retching croaks of the bullfrogs for which the Pond was famous marred the serenity, if you asked me. I wondered if deep listening would help. I sat down on a rock near the pond and contemplated the hell out of those frogs until the croaks began to form a pleasing continuo.
I hadn’t heard from Honey since she’d left the Farm. Was she really the sweet, guileless woman I was so attracted to? Could she possibly be the gold-digger Jojo and Annabel thought she was? Had she used me as a smokescreen? It didn’t take much to make me doubt myself.
I was no longer alone. I felt the faintest breath of air move the little hairs on the back of my neck. I unfolded myself and squinted in the bright light to see who it was.
Feather stood in the center of a circular flagged patio, slicing and slashing the air with what looked like a samurai sword. I’d never seen anyone look so focused, every sinew in motion as she flowed from pose to pose. So much for her being too wimpy to murder
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