Read Online Old School Bones by Randall Peffer - Free Book Online Page B

Elbows on the table, chin in her hand. “I don’t know. I still think it’s a real possibility. I mean, there was that note. But on
CSI
the boyfriend or husband is always the first guy the police want to talk to. So, maybe she tried to dump him and then he …?”
    “If they had a fight. If anything leading up to her death was violent, the medical examiner would have found some evidence.” Sweat is beading on his chest, tickling his solar plexis.
    Dude?
    “But maybe he just slipped her some roofies, first.”
    “Why?”
    “Maybe he wanted to date-rape her.” She pauses, seems to scan his face with almost imperceptible shifts of her eyes. “Like to get even, you know? Maybe he got carried away.”
    Something deep in his head has begun to smoke, burn. Anger, for sure. And something else. “You think Kevin Singleton is that kind of kid?”
    She scrunches up her face. “I don’t know.”
    “Is it hot in here?”
    Her hand reaches over, covers his as she turns the page. “Look. There’s more.”
    I went downstairs and tried to talk to Doc P about this racist note and Kevin and everything. But she couldn’t talk. OK, it was late, and she said she was in bed. Fair enough.
    But Doc P almost always has my back. Tonight, I know she couldn’t talk because she had someone in her bed with her. She thinks I don’t know about her boyfriends. But this is an old house, and sometimes I can hear things going on downstairs. Like sappy, whack music. The bed creaking. Moaning.
    This one guy, who looks like Tupac Shakur, is always sniffing around Hibernia House. Laying down his lines. Like trying to relate to me b/c I’m a sister from the hood. Maybe he’s trying to hit on me. I don’t know.
    Fool. She ought to drop him like a hot potato. She said things were all over with him. But you never know. I don’t see his car on the street, though. So maybe she is branching out. With Doc P, it’s like that book
Smart Women, Foolish Choices.
Sometimes I feel her hurt. Lonely lady.
    Anyway, I needed to talk. So I called Tedeeka. She’s a good listener. Pretty amazing how we connect.
    But she’s not a big one for advice. Especially about love. She’s got a pimp whips her butt all over Roxbury.
    Take care of number one, baby, she told me!
    Word, Teddie, I think. How do I do that when I got a boyfriend afraid to come out and comfort me, a house counselor like to lose her mind for one faithless fool after another, a mother turning tricks on the street? And, oh yeah, the KKK or Red Tooth or whoever breathing down my neck?
    What I need is a big hug and some action. Not some of Teddie’s street jive. Well, it’s 4:00 in the morning, and I got to catch some ZZZZZZZZ for my beauty sleep. Then help Gracie with our history project. Secret societies? Probably a lot of male nonsense. More later.
    The rest of the journal is blank.
    He wipes away the sweat on his forehead again.
    She still has her elbows on the table. Her chin cupped in her hands. Staring at those last words in Lib’s journal … and him. Wondering about all those black whiskers on his cheeks, whether she really thinks they’re sexy.
    “So?”
    “I don’t get it, Gracie.”
    Sometimes guys can be so clueless. It’s kind of cute.
    He squints at her. She’s the knower here. The mystery. Ninja Girl.
    “What’s not to get?”
    He says he doesn’t see how any of this adds up to murder. Or points a finger at a suspect. He just sees a desperate, depressed girl.
    “I thought you were Sir Lancelot.”
    Smile, babe.
    “Cut it out. I’m a fisherman, not one of those guys on
Law & Order.”
    She wonders whether she’s laying it on a little too thick. But what the hell, this is her time to shine, right?
    “Gracie?”
    “You sure don’t get females …”
    He shifts in his seat, looks like he’s going to stand up. Walk right out of here.
    She grabs his left hand—it’s like this involuntary thing. “Don’t you see? Liberty wasn’t really depressed. When teenage girls