Read Online Surface Tension by Christine Kling - Free Book Online
Authors: Christine Kling
Tags: Mystery
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historic old Stranahan House into pieces.
Stepping carefully around the broken dishes, papers, clothes, and trash, I squatted down and reached for the photograph. The frame hung loose from one side. I slid the print out of the frame. We looked so happy, the three of us kids mugging for the camera, and my mother’s lovely slim body in a white one-piece suit. I wondered what she would have looked like if she’d had a chance to grow old. Thankful the photo had not been damaged, I slid it into the zippered side pocket of my shoulder bag. My brothers and I had very few photos of her or of Red.
From the center of the room I could see, through the open bedroom door, that the chaos was no less in the other room. Standing, I started to step across the debris and into the bedroom, and then I noticed that the seat tops were missing off the bolted-down marine barstools on the far side of the living room.
“No!” I trampled across my possessions and peered down into the hollow pipe that served as the base for one of the stools.
“Shit!” I picked up a spatula off the bar and threw it at the wall. It fell soundlessly onto a pile of file folders. Somehow, somebody had figured out where I kept my cash, in a hollow compartment in the base of one of the stools. The stools had come off a fancy sportfisherman B.J. did a remodel on, and aside from the fact that they were free, they took up less space in the little cottage. Sometimes I worked for folks who owned big custom boats and preferred to pay in cash. I didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t always deposit it in my bank account. What a mistake. My emergency money, two thousand dollars, was gone.
I shoved aside several corkscrews and linen dish towels and pressed my forehead against the cool Formica of the bar. Shit. Why me? Here I lived in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country in what is obviously the littlest, cheapest, poorest house in the neighborhood. Why would a thief think there would be anything to steal in here? Two thousand dollars was nothing in this neighborhood. But it had been my safety net. I stared into the empty hole. I’d always been convinced that most burglars wouldn’t even know that that type of marine chair base could come apart. I looked around the room. The TV and VCR were still there. That didn’t make sense. No crackhead or petty thief would have left them. Leaning against the side of my desk, I could see the laptop computer Neal bought me as a gift was still there in its carrying case. Curious.
There was only one other person who knew where I kept that cash stash.
Cleaning up was something I just could not contemplate at that point. Stepping over the food and debris on the kitchen floor, I opened the refrigerator door and reached for a cold beer. At least he hadn’t trashed the little bit of food and drink in there. As I pulled a can out of the plastic ring on the six-pack holder, it occurred to me that one beer was missing. When you’re single, the only one in the house doing any eating or drinking, you remember these things. I had bought that six-pack yesterday. I hadn’t drunk a single beer. But somebody had.
It was that beer that was the clincher. That and the fact that whoever had trashed my place didn’t really seem to be searching for anything, but rather had destroyed my property purely out of anger and meanness—a passion of sorts. That sort of angry passion was familiar to me, too familiar.
I fished around in my pocket for the card Detective Collazo had given me earlier, and I reached for the phone. At first I hadn’t intended to call the cops, since I’d already spent hours with cops that day, and I didn’t really see what good they’d do. On most break-ins in the neighborhood, they as much as told folks not to go on hoping they would ever see any of their stuff again. But this was different . . . apparently my home had just been trashed by somebody the cops thought I had killed.
"Of course. It had to be him,
Stepping carefully around the broken dishes, papers, clothes, and trash, I squatted down and reached for the photograph. The frame hung loose from one side. I slid the print out of the frame. We looked so happy, the three of us kids mugging for the camera, and my mother’s lovely slim body in a white one-piece suit. I wondered what she would have looked like if she’d had a chance to grow old. Thankful the photo had not been damaged, I slid it into the zippered side pocket of my shoulder bag. My brothers and I had very few photos of her or of Red.
From the center of the room I could see, through the open bedroom door, that the chaos was no less in the other room. Standing, I started to step across the debris and into the bedroom, and then I noticed that the seat tops were missing off the bolted-down marine barstools on the far side of the living room.
“No!” I trampled across my possessions and peered down into the hollow pipe that served as the base for one of the stools.
“Shit!” I picked up a spatula off the bar and threw it at the wall. It fell soundlessly onto a pile of file folders. Somehow, somebody had figured out where I kept my cash, in a hollow compartment in the base of one of the stools. The stools had come off a fancy sportfisherman B.J. did a remodel on, and aside from the fact that they were free, they took up less space in the little cottage. Sometimes I worked for folks who owned big custom boats and preferred to pay in cash. I didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t always deposit it in my bank account. What a mistake. My emergency money, two thousand dollars, was gone.
I shoved aside several corkscrews and linen dish towels and pressed my forehead against the cool Formica of the bar. Shit. Why me? Here I lived in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country in what is obviously the littlest, cheapest, poorest house in the neighborhood. Why would a thief think there would be anything to steal in here? Two thousand dollars was nothing in this neighborhood. But it had been my safety net. I stared into the empty hole. I’d always been convinced that most burglars wouldn’t even know that that type of marine chair base could come apart. I looked around the room. The TV and VCR were still there. That didn’t make sense. No crackhead or petty thief would have left them. Leaning against the side of my desk, I could see the laptop computer Neal bought me as a gift was still there in its carrying case. Curious.
There was only one other person who knew where I kept that cash stash.
Cleaning up was something I just could not contemplate at that point. Stepping over the food and debris on the kitchen floor, I opened the refrigerator door and reached for a cold beer. At least he hadn’t trashed the little bit of food and drink in there. As I pulled a can out of the plastic ring on the six-pack holder, it occurred to me that one beer was missing. When you’re single, the only one in the house doing any eating or drinking, you remember these things. I had bought that six-pack yesterday. I hadn’t drunk a single beer. But somebody had.
It was that beer that was the clincher. That and the fact that whoever had trashed my place didn’t really seem to be searching for anything, but rather had destroyed my property purely out of anger and meanness—a passion of sorts. That sort of angry passion was familiar to me, too familiar.
I fished around in my pocket for the card Detective Collazo had given me earlier, and I reached for the phone. At first I hadn’t intended to call the cops, since I’d already spent hours with cops that day, and I didn’t really see what good they’d do. On most break-ins in the neighborhood, they as much as told folks not to go on hoping they would ever see any of their stuff again. But this was different . . . apparently my home had just been trashed by somebody the cops thought I had killed.
"Of course. It had to be him,
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