Read Online Res Judicata by Vicki Grant - Free Book Online

That’s when I saw Shannondoah Boswick-Sanderson.

chapter 13
    Arrest
The taking or keeping of a person in custody by legal
authority, especially in response to a criminal charge.
    She was standing right beside the librarian, but it took me a second to realize who she was. I mean, who’d have thought Shannondoah Sanderson would still be in Halifax? The trial was over ages ago. Why would she bother sticking around a place like this when she could be home in Los Angeles with her money and all that sun?
    She looked good but not as good as she had on TV . She still looked sort of like a Barbie doll—really tall and slim and blond and everything—but now it was sort of Barbie on a bad day. The New Common Cold Barbie or something. She looked really pale and worn out, like she was just dragging herself around. The only reason I recognized her at all was that long yellow hair of hers. It almost didn’t look real. (I don’t think you can even buy hair like that in Halifax.)
    As soon as I realized who she was, I dove under the computer desk as if someone had thrown a bomb at me. Kendall was like, “What are you doing? What’s with you?”
    I went “shut up!” with my eyes and wheeled his chair in front of me so I was completely hidden.
    Kendall made this quiet sigh and looked straight ahead. The way he was acting, you’d swear I was always pulling stuff like this. He mumbled down his sleeve at me. “I don’t get you. We were only laughing. You think the librarian’s going to arrest you or something?”
    I whispered, “No, it’s not that! Look. Look who he’s talking to!”
    Kendall turned his head around and looked. I dug my nails into his leg.
    I went, “Not now! What’s the matter with you! She’ll see.”
    Kendall squeezed his foot down on my thigh until I let go.
    â€œOkay. Who is it?” he said without moving his lips.
    â€œErnest Sanderson’s widow!”
    He scrolled down the screen. He talked in a flat, low voice as if he was just trying to figure something out. “The dead rich guy, you mean?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo? Why are you hiding then?”
    I hissed up at him, “I don’t want her to recognize me!”
    â€œWhy would she recognize you?” Kendall’s not usually that dense. It was annoying me. I would have bitten his ankle only I’d seen what his shoes could do.
    I went, “Andy was Chuck’s lawyer!” before I realized that, duh, of course Shannondoah wouldn’t recognize me. I never went to the courthouse.
    I’d gotten all worked up about nothing. I almost laughed. I pushed Kendall away and climbed out from under the computer desk. What a dork. I mean, even if Shannondoah had recognized me, big deal. So she doesn’t like my mother.What was she going to do—attack me? My guess was she’d be too worried about breaking her nails to do something like that.
    She was talking to the librarian. “No kidding! Wow. Sea lice aren’t fish? I always thought they were fish. No wonder I couldn’t find anything about them in that big old fish book!”
    I rolled my eyes and whispered, “Can you believe her? She doesn’t even know what a sea louse is!”
    Kendall went, “Do you?”
    I waggled my neck around. “No, but that’s beside the point.
I
wasn’t married to a sea louse expert. I mean, she sat all through that trial! You’d think she’d at least know what her husband was working on when he died.”
    I love scoring points (I’m Andy’s son after all), but that’s not why I suddenly went, “Yes!” It just hit me. Forget about doing a video on the fudge sculpture craze taking over the nation! I should do my project on the life—and, even better, death—of Ernest Sanderson.
    I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. It was going to be so easy. I had the inside scoop on the