Read Online Murder on Consignment by Susan Furlong Bolliger - Free Book Online Page B

shop. Unless…maybe he was mixed up with the Russian mob somehow. I watched enough mobster television shows to know that businessmen get mixed up with the mob all the time. So, maybe my first theory was correct. I could see how easily it could happen:  A young James Farrell had the best hot dog bun in the city, but couldn’t start up his business without capital. Desperate, he turned to a two-bit mobster for quick cash. As he grew his business, the mobster was always there to take his share. Poor James was forever indebted to the boss; he’d sold his soul to the mob and they took care of him. They even gave him a beautiful Russian woman, or no … maybe Calina was the mob boss’s daughter … yeah … that really tied James into a life of crime. And now that Calina was gone, he wanted to sever his ties with the family, but they had some sort of hold on him…maybe proof of some illegal activity, or who knows? Whatever the crucial link was, proof of it was mistakenly sold off in Calina’s estate and James had to get it back. Murder could come easily to a man who was that desperate…  
    I smiled to myself; proud that I’d put it all together so quickly. All I needed was a little proof. If I could just find a wee piece of evidence to support my theory, I could prove Shep wasn’t involved in any of this.
    I sat back and carefully considered my options before deciding to follow up on my one other lead—A to Z Estate Sales. I typed their name into the search engine prompt and printed out directions. On the way o ut, I smeared peanut butter on a piece of white bread and folded it in half for a lunch to go. As a final thought, I grabbed the round-framed glasses again and tucked them away in my bag; Prudence may be needed again on this mission.
    I barely made it down my steps when Mom appeared from around the hedge. Pretending not to see her, I made a mad scramble for my car.
    “Phillipena!”
    I cringed. I wasn’t overly fond of my name, especially when my mother yelled it out like that. No matter how it was said, it had a weird sound to it. I had my dad to blame. When I was born as the fifth girl in the O’Brien family, he gave up on waiting for a male namesake and stuck me with some strange feminism of his name. Then, in the third grade, Phillipena became Pippi when the teacher read to us about another precocious red-headed character, Pippi Longstocking. 
    “What in the world! Stop right there!” Mom was running across the yard at break-neck speed.
    I obeyed, turning around to face her.
    She descended upon me like ants on melted ice cream. “What in the world are you wearing?” she asked, punctuating her question with an open-jaw, eye-popping expression.
    I backed up a little. “What am I wearing?” I reiterated, looking down at my wardrobe choice. It seemed fine to me. “A wool skirt, button-down blouse, and navy blazer.” I brushed some dust off the back elbow of the blazer. “I admit, this blazer’s a little dusty. It’s the color; it seems to attract dirt. And there’s a tiny rip in—” 
    “Turn around.”
    I backed up a little more. Was she going to spank me for my wardrobe choice?
    “Turn around right this instant!”
    I pivoted, slowly, squeezing my eyes shut.
    “That’s obscene!” she screeched.
    I opened my eyes and faced her. “Obscene?” 
    “Your skirt.” She grabbed my shoulders and spun me back around. “What’s this?” she asked, pulling and tugging at my backside. “Oh, no. Did you try to tape the hem of this skirt?”
    “Yes, why?” I was twisting my head like an inebriated owl, trying to see what she was fiddling with.
    “The tap e is tangled in the skirt’s liner and stuck to your waist band in the back. You’re completely exposed back here. Look at these holes! You need to get some better panties. Well, at least I caught you before you got out the door. How embarrassing if someone else had seen you this way.” 
    I shriveled, think ing about how many people I