Read Online Lye in Wait by Cricket McRae - Free Book Online Page A

illegal?"
    She looked unhappy. "I don't think so. It's not like his house is
a crime scene. They may have told Mrs. Gray not to let anyone in,
though."
    "Well, I'm going over there and find out."
    "Now?"
    I nodded.
    She rose. "Sparrow's coming at one, but I guess I could help
until then." Sparrow was a regular client, a champion dressage
rider who believed in massage for her horses as well as for herself.
    I'd planned to go down to the coffee shop later to see if any of
Walter's friends showed up. The day was dribbling away already,
and I wondered how to make up the time. I still had so much to
do to ensure Winding Road did well during the upcoming holiday
season.
    We went to the main house to see Walter's landlady, Mrs. Gray.
The police had said nothing about staying out of the cottage, and she was only too glad to give us the key. Meghan insisted that Mrs.
Gray also get direct permission from Tootie Hanover, and I dialed
the nursing home for her. Minutes later, we were entering Walter's
cottage-this time through the front door.
     
    Meghan went into the bedroom to start with Walter's clothes,
and I headed straight for the kitchen.
    The floor was clean. The broken glass was gone, and if I stood
where the light fell at an angle, I could see the edges where a freshly
scrubbed spot of linoleum stood out from the rest of the floor.
The scent of peppermint I'd remembered had been replaced by the
nasty smell of rotting garbage coming from the overflowing pail
under the sink. Whoever had taken Walter's key had returned and
cleaned up their mess. Too bad they hadn't bothered to tidy up the
dirty dishes and food-strewn counters.
    Dumping the garbage into the can in the alley, I watched for
glass fragments, wet paper towels, any evidence of the magical
floor cleanup. Nothing. Whoever had removed the broken glass
from the floor hadn't left anything behind.
    Somehow, I doubted the intruder had been compulsively tidy.
Something about broken glass and peppermint had been important enough to break back into the cottage after almost being
caught the first time.
    Shaking my head in puzzlement, I opened Walter's cupboard
doors until I found a cluster of cups and glasses. There I found five
more tumblers like the one he'd dropped on my rag rug across the
alley. Why had he brought his potion over there? Maybe he'd been
afraid he wouldn't be found for a while if he died alone in this
little cottage.
     
    No, no, that couldn't be the reason. What if Erin had found him
at our house? He adored her, and I couldn't imagine he'd risk her
discovering his dead body. There had to be another explanation.
    I didn't find any lye under the sink or in any of the cupboards.
Of course, the police may have taken it when Mrs. Gray let them in
after Walter died. He hadn't used any of my lye, so it had to come
from somewhere. Could that be what had broken on the floor last
night? The peppermint smell was the same.
    Sighing, I headed back across the alley to raid my supply of
shipping boxes and grab a tape gun. Soon Meghan and I were boxing things up like mad. We started with every shred of paperwork
we could find, glancing through a handful at a time in hope of seeing something that looked like a will and then cramming it all in
the cardboard cartons. As soon as a box was full, I'd cart it across
to our house and come back for another. But our cursory review
revealed no will. Meghan went back to work on the bedroom, and
I started on the shelves in the living room.
    "Hey! What the hell is going on?"
    I whirled from where I was wiping the dust off several pictures
I'd gathered together for Tootie and found a dark-haired woman
with corpse-pale skin standing in the front doorway.
    "Where's Walter? What are you doing with his stuff?" Her little-girl voice scarcely contained her anger. When I didn't respond
right away, she said, "Don't just stand there gawping, answer me!"
    Meghan stepped forward. "You wouldn't happen to