Death on Torrid Ave. by Patricia McLinn

Author:Patricia McLinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
ISBN: 9781944126391
Publisher: Craig Place Books
Published: 2019-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Gracie had energy to spare on our last-call walk.

She’d had only a few minutes’ run at the dog park yesterday and none today. The ring-around-the-rooms and hour-long class at the pet store barely took the edge of her stamina.

So, when she saw a figure walking toward us with a dog, she started to bounce with oh-boy-let’s-play excitement.

I had a different reaction.

It probably didn’t help that I’d spent the past hour making notes of possible murder suspects and motives, the kind of activity that made you jumpy when you spotted a figure walking toward you on a dark street. Even in Haines Tavern, Kentucky.

“Sheila?” A voice softly called. “Is that you and Gracie?”

I breathed again. It was Amy Kackley and her English setter mix, Sadie.

“Hi, Amy. Don’t usually see you out this late.”

“I was waiting for you.”

That did not induce a warm fuzzy feeling. More like a prickly cautious feeling. “Oh?”

The dogs met with wagging tails and sniff greetings.

“I knew you were asking questions at bunco, but everybody was talking all about the murder last night, so I didn’t think much of it. Now, Donna tells me you were asking about Ruby and me tonight.” Prickly might be contagious.

But I ignored the caution. “I wondered about what happened at the post office today, with Berrie.”

“What happened was Berrie being her unbalanced self. Her and Bob Coble. The two of them deserved each other. Too bad — Well…” She caught herself before saying something I probably would have wanted to hear. “For heaven’s sake, attacking Ruby Zweydorf of all people. A nicer, kinder woman you’ll never find. And attack her where it could hurt her the worst — her job. You saw Ike in there with her?”

“The man reading the newspaper in the corner?”

“That’s Ike. Ike Zweydorf. He was hurt in a car accident about ten years back. He can’t talk anymore. Has some other brain damage. Not real bad. Just bad enough that he can’t be on his own. Sure can’t work. Hates the adult day care that’s available. But he’s okay sitting in that corner, reading the paper front to back a couple times, knowing Ruby’s there, never bothering a soul.

“But Bob — high and mighty Bob Coble complained to the post office about it. Another time he filed an official complaint that she opened two minutes late when Ike was having a real bad day. If Ruby lost this job … I wanted to stra—”

She cut that off. Though this I could fill in for myself.

Gracie stopped trying to induce older and wiser Sadie to play and looked up.

“It’s a saying, Amy. No worries.”

She shook her head. At herself, I thought.

“People called me a Dwight out at the dog park. But I’ve had dogs all my life and I have my own ways. It wasn’t so much following Dwight as being an anti-Bob. Wanting nothing to do with him and how he used everything as a weapon.”

“Like lawsuits?” It was about as open as a question could be. I hoped Amy would answer it with everything she knew.

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