Read Online Good Little Wives by Abby Drake - Free Book Online Page B

medical examiner has set the time of death earlier than we first thought.”
    â€œYou’re kidding!”
    The eyebrow lifted again.
    â€œSo Kitty didn’t do it!”
    â€œI didn’t say that. But further examination showed that rigor mortis had begun to set in, so it had been a few hours. We’re thinking eleven-thirty.”
    â€œCould it have been suicide?”
    â€œNo. The trajectory of the bullet was all wrong for that.”
    â€œSo anyone could have shot him.”
    â€œAny of many.”
    â€œLike people you’d already ruled out.”
    â€œBingo.”
    â€œLike all of the women at Caroline’s party?”
    He sat down and lodged his eyes on her. “Not all of them, maybe. But one, anyway.”
    Â 
    â€œHelp,” Dana said when Bridget answered her door a few minutes later. “Is it possible Lauren killed Vincent?” She’d been heading home when, halfway there, she took a left not a right, because she knew this was something she could not figure out for herself.
    â€œWhy on earth would she?” Bridget asked as she let Dana into the house. “Did he beat Bob at golf?” She poured wine without asking.
    Dana collapsed on the couch, then told Bridget about the Helmsley and the flagpole and the rest of the stuff.
    Bridget made no comment.
    â€œAren’t you shocked?” Dana asked.
    â€œActually,” Bridget replied, “yes. I am.”
    They toasted each other and took a quick drink. Then Dana said, “I feel like our world is falling apart.”
    â€œIt might not be a bad thing. Maybe we were getting—how you say—too big for our pantaloons.”
    It would have been nicer if Bridget weren’t right.
    â€œIt’s hard enough to think that Kitty was capable of killing Vincent. But Lauren?” Dana asked.
    â€œMaybe she was afraid he would tell Bob about the affair.”
    â€œI wonder if Bob would leave her.”
    â€œDoubtful. He’s an old man. And she raised all those kids.”
    â€œLike they were her own.”
    â€œBut they aren’t.”
    â€œNeither was Vincent.”
    They thought. They drank. They sat, thinking some more, black hair and silver, big boobs and little, Franco-American.
    â€œKitty is our friend,” Dana said. “But Lauren is, too.”
    â€œWe should warn her.”
    â€œI’ll drive.”
    They set down their wineglasses and Dana found her keys and they opened the front door to leave. Unfortunately, on the other side of the door, stood Detective Glen Johnson and three other officers.
    Â 
    He asked where Bridget had been at eleven-thirty the day Vincent was murdered and if she’d had an affair with the man.
    Bridget said she’d had a massage from eleven until noon and then stopped by her stylist’s for a blow-dry. She pronounced “massage” as if she were in France, and “blow-dry” like a proposition.
    Dana figured she’d done that on purpose just to anger the cops who had no doubt followed Dana to Bridget’s. The Sherlocks of New Falls must have deduced that Dana would run to the woman whose name she hadn’t disclosed.
    She must remember to call Lauren, not pay her a visit.
    Bridget then told the police if she were to have an affair, it wouldn’t be with a man from New Falls. “Gossip, darling,” she said, sounding more like Zsa Zsa Gabor than Marie Antoinette. “It can keel one in a town such as this.”
    No one suggested that gossip—or the fear of it—might have been what had keeled Vincent.
    They asked the names of Bridget’s masseur and hairstylist.Bridget cooperated, then invited them to come back if there was anything else they needed. The men stared at her boobs, then reluctantly left.
    The door barely closed, Bridget flew to her cell phone and began punching numbers.
    â€œThomas,” she said breathlessly. “It’s me, Bridget. Pick up. Please. Peeeeeck