Read Online The Bone Box by Gregg Olsen - Free Book Online

Derby at all. She was glad she didn’t live in his congressional district. She would probably doorbell for any other candidate no matter what their qualifications.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be the first time,” said the clerk, a middle-aged woman whose county-issue name badge identified her as Consuelo Maria Diego. “But I don’t think so. He just hated Pat. She quit here because of him. I don’t know what the beef was, but Sheriff said, ‘Pat didn’t have a leg to stand on.’ He could be mean like that, you know.”

C HAPTER E IGHT
    The Wicker Avenue Antiques Mall was a gritty warren of old, musty collectibles of debatable value. Customers entered the tight rows of vendor cubicles with their questionable arrays of Strawberry Shortcake lunchboxes, milk jugs from defunct Northwest dairies, or the occasional 1970s-era kitchen set and were immediately skeptical that they’d find anything there that they couldn’t get from the closeout section of the local Goodwill. In fact, the Port Angeles Goodwill had a better record for delivering the occasional treasure.
    Patricia Stanford had snowy white hair that she wore down to her waist. She also had one more distinguishing feature. Pat-Stan was missing her right leg, having lost it in a meth lab shootout the year after she’d made it to the detective’s rank.
    Didn’t have a leg to stand on.... What a jerk!
    â€œPatricia Stanford?” Birdy asked, approaching Pat as she fanned out the items in a jewelry case around a handwritten sign that said BAKELITE SOMEONE HAPPY.
    Pat turned on her good leg. “That’s me. Can I help you find something?”
    â€œI’ve found what I’m looking for,” Birdy said. “That would be you.”
    Pat appeared surprised. “Me?”
    Birdy nodded and introduced herself, and the flicker of recognition—at least of her name—came over Pat-Stan in the most pleasant of ways. The woman, who leaned a little because she didn’t like the way the prosthetic leg felt on the stub of her thigh, managed a warm smile.
    â€œYou’re grown up,” she said. “You look the same in the eyes, but, well, well, you have grown up.”
    Birdy returned the smile. “I remember how kind you were to me back then.”
    â€œAnd you’ve come here to tell me that?” she asked.
    â€œNot exactly,” Birdy said. “I came for help.”
    Pat-Stan narrowed her focus, ignoring a couple of women haggling over a stack of vintage hankies. “What kind of help?”
    â€œI came here for my cousin Tommy.”
    Pat-Stan shifted her weight and winced. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œOf course not,” Birdy said, explaining that Tommy was ill and she wanted to help clear his name before it was too late.
    â€œWhere’s he living?” she asked.
    Birdy paused a beat. She wondered why Pat-Stan asked that. “Walla Walla. He never got out of prison.”
    The shop manager looked genuinely surprised. “But that was more than twenty years ago. I thought he’d be out long ago,” she said.
    â€œHe won’t admit to something he didn’t do. And that’s the only way he could have been paroled.”
    â€œI wish I could help you,” she said, stepping away to twist the small padlock on the jewelry case door.
    Birdy touched her shoulder. “You can. You don’t have to wish.”
    Patricia took a small step backward, both hips now resting against the cabinet. “I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I was a secretary studying to try to get the god-awful job that cost me my leg. The pension is good. But I’d rather have my leg.”
    It was a joke, an attempt to defuse the tension between them.
    â€œActually, I’m a little surprised that you’re alive. I spent a half hour with Sheriff Derby and he told me that you were dead.”
    â€œInteresting. He probably wishes