Read Online Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow by Cynthia Baxter - Free Book Online

paw. Or maybe his tail.” He shrugged. “Hey, you’re the animal expert.”
    “Maybe he knocked off the book,” I mused. “But who keeps sneakers on a shelf?”
    “I’m just telling you what I heard. Doesn’t make sense to me either.”
    “What was the title of the book?”
    “The Scarlet Letter.”
    “The Nathaniel Hawthorne classic?” I asked, confused. “That’s not exactly beach reading. I can’t imagine why someone like Cassandra would even have a book like that in her house—unless it was one she’d saved from her college days. Or maybe the murderer brought it along...?”
    “Nope. Her copy. The cops found her name inside. Her handwriting.”
    “Which makes it even more likely it was a book she’d gotten for a class. Not many people take the trouble to write their name in their books once they’re out of school.”
    Forrester shrugged. “Like I said, the whole thing is a complete mystery. But why don’t you wrap that pretty little head of yours around this puzzle, and maybe you can come up with the answer.”
    I opened my mouth to lambaste him for using a phrase that I hadn’t heard since the last time TNT ran a Dean Martin movie. Then I noticed the twinkle in his eyes and realized that, once again, the man was playing with me.
    “Maybe I’ll do just that,” I returned loftily. “Especially since the cops haven’t managed to wrap their ugly little heads around it and come up with anything at all.”
    He laughed. “You’re fast, Popper; I’ll give you that. And you know, I’ve always liked fast women—”
    “What else did the police find at the crime scene?” I interrupted. “Were there any hairs, fibers, fingerprints, footprints...anything at all?”
    “All of the above, actually. Over the next few days they’ll be analyzing the forensic evidence and putting together a list of all the people who were recently in that room.”
    I nodded. “Have the police determined what the murder weapon was yet? Was it a knife or some other sharp object—a letter opener, maybe? Have the cops found it? Does it have fingerprints—”
    “The police still haven’t located the weapon.”
    My mind raced as I tried to consider every possible angle and every possible detail. I could picture driving away from Cassandra’s house and slapping myself on the head for forgetting to ask Forrester for some key piece of information. “Was the phone in her home office off the hook?” I asked. “A sign that she’d tried to call for help?”
    “There was no phone in the room. In fact, the only land line in the house is in the kitchen. A leftover from the old days, before cell phones.”
    “Speaking of cell phones...”
    “The police found Cassandra’s cell in her purse, in the living room.”
    “So the murderer didn’t take her purse.”
    “Or anything else, apparently. At least, not that the cops have noticed. The TV, the DVD player, jewelry, some cash that was in a drawer—all untouched.”
    “So robbery was not the motive, just like it said in your article.” My head buzzed with all the bits and pieces of information Forrester was handing me. “Are there any theories about whether Cassandra’s attacker was someone she knew or if he—”
    “Wait a sec. You referred to the murderer as a ‘he.’ How do you know it wasn’t a ‘she’? In fact,” he went on, a strange look crossing his face, “how do you know it wasn’t your pal who killed Cassandra? Just because you and this Suzanne used to play field hockey together at Bryn Mawr—or whatever you two did—doesn’t mean she didn’t off her ex’s new flame.”
    Once again, I could feel a wave of fury rising up inside me. “Look, Forrester. I’ve known Suzanne Fox for a very long time. And I would bet my life on the fact that there’s absolutely no way she had anything to do with this!”
    “I hear you,” Forrester returned, holding up his hands. “I’m just raising the question, that’s all. I mean, when you come right down to