Read Online Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly by Paula K. Perrin - Free Book Online

head.  “Do you
think atheists get het up over their street corners?”
    “Nope.  You can only get het
up when you’re convinced God’s on your side.”
    She guffawed, turned left past the
excrescence of the new McDonald’s and pulled up in front of the combination
police station/fire station/meeting hall.
    “Are you going to tell Gene
where you went last night?” I asked.
    She withdrew her keys from the
ignition and carefully stored them in her purse.  “Yes, of course I am.  I
don’t know why I was so secretive.”
    “So where did you go?”
    Her cellular phone buzzed in her
purse.  She snatched it out.  “Oh, hi, Max.”  She shook the phone,
then said, “Talk fast, Max, I’m on low bat again.”
    I could dimly hear the gnat’s
whine of the voice on the other end of the call.  I felt awkward sitting so
close to a phone conversation, but I was determined to get Fran to tell me what
lie she’d made up to tell Gene. 
    I studied the grey, cement-block
building.  To the right were huge glass doors behind which the fire trucks
rested.  In the middle of the building was a recessed, covered entryway that
led to lobby doors.  I’d waited there several times while the city council
wrangled in private session.  I’d never had to visit the police section before.
    Fran said sharply, “No!  Are
you sure?”
    I turned.  She stared at me, her
green eyes wide.
    “What?” I said.
    She waved me to silence, listening
intently.  Soon she said, “Okay, Max, thanks.”
    “Remind me to recharge this,” she
said as she folded the phone.  “Now, Liz, I’m going to tell you something,
and you have to promise me you won’t let anyone know you know about it because
I’m not supposed to know either.”
    “What?”
    “Promise.”
    “Well, of course I
promise.”
    “Remember I told you the cops
found something under Andre’s body but Max couldn’t see what it was?  Well, he
found out.  It was a string of sequins from Meg’s costume.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    I went ice-cold.  “Not
Meg,” I whispered.  “He was hit so hard.”  My voice rose.  “I
saw his brain!”
    Fran clutched my shaking hands in
hers.  “We’d better start calling lawyers.”
    “She couldn’t have done
it.”
    “I don’t want to think so,
either, but remember what you told me after Andre ran over Mr. Dickens?”
    “Oh, God.”  Meg had made
such a terrible scene when Andre killed her beloved old cat.  “Even so,
Fran—it’s been months.”
    “Six weeks.”
    “Whatever, you don’t kill a
man because he ran over a cat.”
    “No, a normal person
wouldn’t, but you’ve told me repeatedly that Meg’s been strange—”
    “No, Fran!  No!  It’s obscene
that you’d even think it!”  I pushed open the car door, struggled with the
seat belt release, and staggered up onto the curb.
    She leaned over the passenger seat
and peered up at me, saying, “Calm down, Liz, I’m only trying to
help!”
    “Help?  When you’re
suggesting—” my throat closed.
    Fran came around the front of the
car and reached for me.
    I drew back.  “Don’t you dare
breathe those foul suspicions to anyone just to divert attention from yourself
and whatever you were up to last night.”
    Tears shimmered in her green
eyes.  “Liz!  Please.  I’d never do anything to hurt Meg—”
    I turned and ran across the
sidewalk and up the steps to the police station.  I yanked open one of the
glass doors and told the receptionist I was there to be fingerprinted.  Millay,
standing behind her, said he’d do it.  She buzzed me through the security door,
and I followed him down a hallway between cement block walls.  Small, square
light fixtures recessed in the ceiling shone patches of glare on the cement
floor.  Our steps echoed as we walked to a brightly lit room.
    After the prints, as I tried to
scrub off the black ink with the rough paper towel Millay handed me, he said,
“Gene wants to talk to you.”
    “I need to wash