Read Online Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery) by Annelise Ryan - Free Book Online Page A

the dining room was done in colonial blue, and plum was the color of choice for a front room that had probably served as a parlor at one time but was now a TV/family room, complete with a game system. Judging from the controllers sitting on the coffee table, I surmised that the game system was used a lot, or at the very least had been used recently.
    I headed upstairs to the bedrooms and snapped the two boys’ rooms first, poking around as I went. From there I moved into the master bedroom and took some more shots, including one of the phone charger. In the closet I found two items of women’s clothing hanging along with all the men’s stuff: one white blouse and a pair of gray dress slacks. I didn’t know how Derrick’s wife was built, so I couldn’t be sure these weren’t left over from her, but the tiny size of the clothing made me think they might be Mandy’s.
    Richmond came up a few minutes later and found me peeking into Derrick’s dirty clothes hamper. With a gloved hand I reached in and snagged the black lacy thong that was lying on top and showed it to Richmond. “Either Derrick had a secret fetish, or Mandy was here recently.”
    “I’m going to hope for the latter,” Richmond said. He peered closer at the undies and said, “How does someone wear those things?”
    “It’s a thong.” I held them up by the waist and showed him the back part. “This part goes up your butt crack.”
    Richmond made a face. “I know what it is. I just don’t get how anyone could wear it. It looks like it would be really uncomfortable.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” I told him, tossing the thong back in the hamper. “I’ve never been much into butt floss, and to be honest, most of the panties in my size are boring old granny panties. Apparently the lingerie makers figure that if you aren’t a size zero or two, you wouldn’t want to strut around in sexy undies.”
    Richmond was staring at his feet and shifting uncomfortably from one to the other.
    “Sorry,” I said, giving him an apologetic look. “Was that too much information?”
    “No, it’s not that. It’s just a topic I don’t know much about. I don’t have any sisters, I’ve never been married, and I never dated much. Most of the girls I knew weren’t too keen on going out with someone who looked like Jabba the Hutt.”
    My heart ached for the guy. I realized then what a lonely existence he must have had prior to his weight loss. “You don’t look like Jabba the Hutt anymore,” I said. “In fact, you’re looking pretty darned good these days, Richmond.”
    “Too bad I didn’t lose the weight when I was younger. Things might have been a whole lot different.”
    “It’s never too late to start.”
    “I’m going to be fifty in June, Mattie.”
    “So?”
    He sighed and shook his head. Then he switched topics on me. “Our dispatcher just called and said the officers are bringing Ames’s wife and kids down to the station at ten, which gives us about twenty minutes.”
    “Is Arnie here yet?”
    “He is. In fact, he’s in the kitchen as we speak trying to convince Jonas that Elvis Presley isn’t dead, but rather that he faked his death and had a wax body buried in his coffin so he could escape from the music business and go off somewhere private and live in peace.”
    “Poor Jonas,” I said, shaking my head and smiling. “I just hope all those steroids he’s been taking don’t trigger any ’roid rage in him or we may end up with a double homicide to investigate.”
    “Junior might have saved the day. He loaned Jonas his iPod and some earbuds so Jonas can tune Arnie out.”
    “Ooh, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said with a grimace. “Just the other day Arnie was telling me about the latest conspiracy theory circulating on the Internet regarding iPods.”
    Richmond gave me a puzzled look, opened his mouth as if to say something, and then snapped it shut again, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know,” he grumbled