Read Online McCone and Friends by Marcia Muller - Free Book Online Page B

house, with Shar on one side of me and Lottie on the other. The guy from Bay Alarm had already called Harry Homestead to tell him about a malfunction in the security system and the huge floral arrangement sitting on the front porch. Now he was waiting on the walk for Harry to arrive. And not far away, in deepest shadow, lurked a couple of San Francisco’s finest.
    “You really think this’ll work?” I whispered.
    “Yes,” Shar and Lottie said in unison.
    I looked from one to the other. Their expressions were so fierce that I was reminded of a horror movie where these harpies ripped a poor helpless male to shreds.
    A few minutes more and a car turned into the driveway. Its headlights moved over the yew trees, and even though we were well hidden, I ducked my head. The car door slammed, footsteps tapped on the concrete, and a figure in a trench coat hurried up the walk to the security guy. From my past surveillance, I recognized old Harry.
    “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
    The security man said something I couldn’t hear, turned on his flashlight, and shone it up the steps at the porch where the flowers were.
    Homestead went stiff. He took a step toward the house, stopped and said, “How long has that been here?”
    “It was here when I checked the place around nine. The malfunction came up on our command center screens at eight-fifteen.”
    Homestead was still staring at the floral arrangement. “You sure it wasn’t a break-in?”
    “Well, we can’t be a hundred percent certain, but there’s no evidence of tampering. All the same, if you’ll give me your keys, I’ll check around inside—”
    “No! I mean, don’t got to the trouble. I’ll take it from here.”
    “It’s no trouble—”
    “Just go. Please.” The security guy shrugged and went down the driveway to his car.
    Harry stayed where he was, staring at the dark porch. Finally he squared his shoulders and started up there. At the top of the steps he took out what I guessed was a Bic and flicked it. The flame flared, wavered and went out as he dropped the lighter. And Harry let out a sound that made the hair on the back of my neck standup. “Got him!” Lottie whispered.
    Next I heard Harry fumbling with the lock. The door opened and banged back against the inside wall. Light came on overhead, and Harry pushed the flower arrangement aside and stumbled down the hallway. Other lights flashed on. Progressing from the front to the back of the house. Lottie murmured, “I’d say he’s as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers.”
    A few seconds later the cops who had been watching nearby stepped out of the shadows and flashed us thumbs-up sign. Hands on their holstered guns, they climbed the steps to investigate whoever it was who’d entered a long-unoccupied house in one of the city’s most crime-ridden areas.
    Shar stood up and brushed a piece of yew tree out of her hair. “The flowers really spooked him! Sylvester Piazza must’ve done one hell of a job.”
    “Actually, the arrangement doesn’t exactly match Susan Cross’s original.” Lottie said.
    “Oh?” Shar’s eyes were on the house.
    “Yeah. Sylvester couldn’t come get any giant bird of paradise, so I came up with the idea of substituting something even more effective. Sansevierta. ”
    “What’s that?”
    Lottie grinned wickedly. “Something that’s highly appropriate, given that Harry lured his wife here on the pretext that she was to meet his mother. The common name for Sansevierta is mother-in-law’s tongue.”
    Shar started to laugh, and she was still laughing when the cops dragged a handcuffed Harry from the garage. They’d found him checking the freezer to make use Susan Cross hadn’t risen from the dead to create one last flower arrangement.

 
UP AT THE RIVERSIDE
(Ted Smalley)

    “Duck if you see a cop, Ted.”
    And so we were off on our mission: my boss, Sharon McCone; my partner, Neal Osborn; and me, Ted Smalley. She, the issuer of my