Read Online You Better Knot Die by Betty Hechtman - Free Book Online Page A

coming off his eyes made it pretty clear what he meant by and . It seemed the distant past now. Particularly after the events of the afternoon.
    Barry suddenly realized I wasn’t alone and he grunted as he saw my company. His irritated sound wasn’t aimed at Sheila. Ever since the table had become a permanent fixture, so had she. Who could blame her? She lived in a rented room in a house in Woodland Hills. All his irritation was aimed at Mason, who was sitting next to Sheila and working on the red dog sweater for Spike.
    “I thought you had the evening off,” Barry said to me.
    “I would have if it hadn’t been for this afternoon,” I said, sitting up and trying to stretch the kinks out of my back. Barry gave Mason a dark look, apparently assuming my afternoon’s problems had involved him.
    Mason put his hands up in innocence. “I had nothing to do with it. She forgot our plans, too.”
    Barry glowered at the last comment. “I called your cell a bunch of times but just got your voice mail. What’s going on?”
    “Really?” I said, fishing around for my cell phone. It had gone to silent, again. The screen flashed on and the message icon flashed. I put the phone on the table so I wouldn’t miss any calls, but it was kind of like shutting the door after the chickens got out. I looked at Barry. “I’m sorry that I forgot our dinner plans.” I nodded at Mason. “And I’m sorry I forgot I offered to help you with Spike’s coat.” I looked at both of them. “And I’m sorry I apparently made double plans. I’m sorry I didn’t answer my cell phone, too.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m tired,” I said, bringing up my aborted night’s sleep on top of a killer day on top of a two-day trip with Adele. “I thought I’d work through the afternoon and go home and crash. But life had other plans.” The three of them had concern in their expressions by now. I sounded pretty close to cracking.
    “Okay, what happened this afternoon that changed everything?” Barry said, leaning on the table.
    I explained about going home in the middle of the day to pick up the snowflakes, which as it turned out never got picked up. I described the scene with Emily and the paramedics.
    “She told me that Bradley was dead, and then as they were loading her in the ambulance, she said her daughters needed to be picked up from school.”
    “And you volunteered,” Barry said.
    “What else could I do—leave the girls stranded at school? The couple in the suits certainly weren’t going to do it. They were already in their car.”
    “Who were they?” Mason asked. I didn’t have an answer. They were gone before I had a chance to ask them and Emily had a few other things going on.
    “So, what happened to the Perkins guy?” Barry prodded.
    “I didn’t find out until later. I picked up her girls and went by the hospital. Emily was ready to be released. They’d determined she hadn’t hit her head and had just passed out from shock.” I described driving them all home with a side stop at a fast-food drive-thru.
    “She told her daughters she’d taken a misstep off a ladder while trying to finish putting up the Christmas lights. She didn’t say anything about Bradley to them, so I guess they still thought he was away on a business trip. They bought the story about the ladder and she got them to take their merry meals into the den. When we were alone she dropped the cheerful pretense and took a letter out of her pocket and handed it to me. The torn envelope looked benign. It was addressed to her and postmarked Long Beach. The letter was anything but benign. Emily began to cry as I read it over.”
    I took a deep breath, feeling my stomach clench at remembering the note. “It was a suicide note. He said by the time she read it, he’d be gone. That’s why he bought the one-way ticket on the Catalina Express. He knew it would be dark and not crowded and nobody would notice him go off the back of the boat. And why? He said