Read Online Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death by Jeffrey Allen - Free Book Online Page B

of thing could lead to bad news for me.” He shook his head, as if he was reminding himself. “No, sir. I can’t talk about that. My bros might find out and I’d have to answer to the rest of the PDs.”
    “The PDs?”
    “The Petal Dawgs,” Butch said. “That’s the name of the club.”

16
    “So you think she’s lying?” I asked.
    Victor nodded. “Yep.”
    We were leaning against my minivan in the parking lot of the library. Most everyone had left and there were only a few cars remaining. Butch had excused himself, driving off in a late model Ford pickup rather than on a motorcycle like I’d expected, and I was left to ponder the validity of the Petal Dawgs when Victor came shuffling out of the library and motioned me to the parking lot.
    “I didn’t ask Matilda anything point-blank,” Victor said. “I didn’t want to freak her out. So I asked a couple of questions about how long she’d been on the board, that kind of thing. Then I asked how well she knew Spellman and she got real quiet.”
    “So you think Matilda was having an affair with Spellman, then?”
    He adjusted the hat on his head. “I don’t know if it was an affair, or what it was, but there was something going on. I started asking her questions and she turned red like a tomato and that bozo in the wig came over to intervene.”
    “Bruce. The bozo’s name is Bruce.”
    He waved a tiny hand in the warm evening air as if shooing away a pesky mosquito. “Yeah, sure, Bruce. Whatever. The dope in the wig. But he came over and tried to get all tough-guy with me and I told him if he didn’t back off, I’d beat the crap out of him like I do everyone else.”
    “I’d like to see that list.”
    “Shut up. Anyway, she didn’t give me a single straight answer about Spellman, and I felt like the rest of that group was eavesdropping the entire time. The old bag was definitely trying to listen in. We need to get Matilda alone and talk to her.” He paused. “Actually, I’d rather you get her alone. I’m afraid she might sit on me and kill me. Jesus, is she big.”
    Before I could come up with a way to get her alone, the doors to the library opened and Mama emerged, leading her crew. The Nor-volds walked quickly to their old pickup, Bruce and Matilda walked slowly toward an old SUV, and Mama was beelining right for us.
    “What exactly am I paying you two to do?” she demanded, her eyes bearing down on me first, then Victor.
    “Investigate,” Victor said. “That’s what you gave me the retainer for.”
    “Right. So what exactly do you think you’re doing in there upsetting Matilda?”
    “I wasn’t upsetting her. I was asking her questions.”
    “That upset her,” Mama said, her eyes bulging.
    “What exactly were you asking her?”
    “That, ma’am, is exactly none of your business.”
    Mama’s head looked like one of those cartoon characters whose heads were about to explode and steam started to shoot out their ears.
    “Shorty, I am paying you and you work for me,” she said through locked teeth. “Everything you do is my business.”
    Victor looked at me, bored. “Do all of you tall people just resort to short jokes when you got nothin’ else?”
    I shrugged. “Pretty much.”
    He turned his attention back to Mama. “We are investigating. When we have something to share, we will. Until then, who we question and what we ask them is our business. If you’d like to dictate every single question, then maybe you should be the private detective, instead.”
    I worried for a moment that she might try to tackle him and I wasn’t sure how I’d intervene if that was the case. I definitely would’ve been on Victor’s side, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to appropriately remove an old woman from a midget. They don’t teach you that in part-time private detective school.
    “Maybe I’ll do just that and ask for my retainer back,” she said with a smug smile.
    “I’ll write you a check right now if you’d like,” Victor