Read Online Nail Biter by Sarah Graves - Free Book Online

Marge kept insisting she would do sooner or later. That's when they took their walk-through.”
    Bob removed the toothpick and tucked it back into his shirt pocket. “That,” he added, “is when they found a paper bag full of pills. Oxycontins, big stash in a bag in the utility shed.”
    Oh, brother. Oxycontins, or “oxies” as they were called by illicit users, were the latest and most horrendously addictive drug of choice in two areas of the United States: rural poverty-stricken Appalachia, and here.
    “They're sure?” I asked, and he nodded.
    “Pharmaceutical stuff,” he confirmed. “But you didn't see anything like that?”
    I shook my head. “No, but it was dark, and . . .”
    And anyway, why would I? I'd had the little matter of a dead guy distracting me.
    Leonora had slept through the din of the town truck but now she woke and began bouncing energetically in her stroller, her small arms and legs waving as if being pulled up and down on strings.
    “I put a word in for you two, by the way,” Bob added, “so no DEA guy'll start thinking maybe one of you hid 'em there.”
    “Thanks,” I said sincerely. Paunchy and faintly comical-appearing draped in all that cop paraphernalia, Bob didn't resemble a fellow who could vouch for you with anyone much higher than dogcatcher.
    But over the years, he'd been quietly involved in some law enforcement matters whose reach extended far beyond Eastport, Maine. So his character reference was golden; right away I felt a little better about the situation.
    “I'll bet the body and the pills are connected,” Ellie said, crossing the lawn to retrieve one of Leonora's kicked-off pink booties.
    That was a reasonable idea, too; Eugene Dibble was just the kind of loser to whom a stash of oxies would look like a winning hand.
    “I still don't get what that's got to do with Wanda Cathcart being missing, though,” she went on, replacing the bootie.
    The baby grinned, showing nubbins of new front teeth, then let out a squall they must've heard across the bay. Ellie picked her up and began walking around with her, as Bob went on to me.
    “Maybe nothing,” he said, pushing some wet leaves around with the toe of his own boot. “Trouble is that when the cops left, Wanda didn't come back. Marge is pretty scared, which is why she decided to confide in me at all, I guess.”
    That was the plus side of Bob Arnold's unthreatening looks: people talked to him. Once they did they often found out mild appearances aren't everything, but that's another story.
    “And,” I thought aloud, “she's also afraid if Wanda doesn't show up soon they'll think maybe she
is
involved somehow with the drugs?”
    “Yeah. Or even the murder. Or both. Hey, they don't know the girl,” he said as Ellie returned with the baby, “so why shouldn't they think that? Anyway, the long and short of it is, Marge asked me to ask you two to help try finding her daughter,” he finished.
    “Preferably before the state boys come around again wanting to complete their interviews?” I suggested.
    “Wouldn't hurt,” he agreed amiably. “They're all over this thing like fleas on a yard dog. They find out the girl's gone, they're going to draw some conclusions.”
    Just the thought of the state cops trying to make heads or tails out of Wanda Cathcart made me feel like taking that sledgehammer to my own head. But so did what Bob Arnold was asking Ellie and me to do.
    “Criminy,” I said helplessly. “How did Marge even find out we might be any good at it, anyway?”
    “Yeah, Bob,” Ellie said, stepping forward with the baby in her arms. “How did she?”
    Surprised, Bob took a hasty half-step back. “Now, Ellie,” he began placatingly.
    “Don't ‘now, Ellie' me.” She advanced relentlessly on him. “Girl vanishes, cops are on the scene, but the mother wants
us
?”
    She put a hand on her hip. “So, Bob,” she persisted, “would you care to explain to us how
that
little eventuality happened to