Read Online Switch by John Lutz - Free Book Online

did.
    â€œAnyway, to continue my diatribe—and I know that is how you regard it, unable to conceptualize as you are that nefarious things do go on in this purgatory of pain that reasonable people ...”
    â€œIs that Grandma?” Jody asked, her face lighting up. “Let me talk to her!”
    Pearl tossed her the phone, and Jody snatched it from the air and walked off into the next room, yammering.
    Pearl and Quinn smiled silently at each other.
    May 11, 1:19 p.m.
    â€œJack is dead?”
    Ida seemed astounded.
    Craig Clairmont looked suddenly out of breath and sat down hard enough in a patched vinyl wing chair to move the heavy piece of furniture six inches across the hardwood floor.
    â€œWe don’t know that for certain,” Quinn said. “We only have the finger.”
    Ida French went to stand at the back of the chair, over Craig’s right shoulder. She appeared ill. “And you know it’s Jack’s finger?”
    â€œYes,” Pearl said. “Fingerprints. Print.”
    â€œJack would never harm anyone,” Craig said. “Not physically, anyway.”
    Quinn thought that an odd thing to say but let it pass. Jody was seated off to the side, observing. She’d wanted to come with them, actually meet these people. She viewed it as research for her own fledgling career in criminal law. You couldn’t know too much about the criminal mind.
    â€œIt could be theorized,” Quinn said to Craig, “maybe even proved, that you stole Alexis Hoffermuth’s bracelet and were also implicated in her death.”
    Craig appeared to have been struck a glancing blow. “Wow! That’s wild.”
    â€œJewel theft and homicide are wild.”
    â€œFirst Jack, then that poor Mrs. Hoffermuth,” Craig said, pacing. “Or maybe it was the other way around.” He seemed unable to sit down.
    Jody looked at Quinn and smiled slightly, appreciating the performance.
    â€œMrs. Hoffermuth was a number of things,” Quinn said, “but not poor.”
    â€œI meant, what she must have gone through.”
    â€œDo you know something about it?”
    â€œHow she was tortured. It was on the news. It—”
    There was a scratching on the door to the hall. Craig exchanged glances with Ida French.
    More scratching. Insistent.
    The kitchen window must be completely closed.
    Both of them leaped toward the door, bumping into each other. It was Craig who wrestled the door open.
    A large black tomcat strutted in, arched its back, stretched, then continued toward a hall leading to what Quinn assumed were bedrooms and a bathroom. It had three white boots and the slightest touch of white between its eyes.
    On the welcome mat behind him the cat had left a glittering jeweled bracelet.
    This time Ida French managed to elbow Craig aside and snatched up Boomerang’s offering.
    â€œBoomerang?” Pearl asked, to make sure.
    â€œThere isn’t any doubt,” Craig said, staring at the bracelet in Ida’s cupped hand. “But that bracelet looks like an imitation.”
    â€œSure does,” Ida French said, after a slight hesitation.
    Quinn and Pearl got up and went over to examine the bracelet. Ida never offered to release her grip on it. The jewels might have been fake, but then no one there was an expert.
    â€œIt has to be imitation” Ida French said.
    â€œUnless Alexis Hoffermuth was trying to pull off an insurance scam,” Craig said.
    Quinn guessed that Craig, inspired, was trying to set up a scenario wherein he could convince everyone the bracelet was paste jewelry and it might as well stay with him and Ida French. But if that didn’t work, blame might be shifted to Alexis Hoffermuth, dead and unable to defend herself.
    â€œYou would know about scams,” Quinn said.
    Craig looked at him, surprise on his handsome features. Then he smiled. “Part of your job, I guess, looking into people’s unsavory pasts.”
    â€œ