Jack Sprat Could by Sharon Ervin

Author:Sharon Ervin [Ervin, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, mystery, novella, comedy, cozy, private investigator
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Police

Wheeler thumbed through magazines as he sat—elbows braced on his knees, both feet flat on the floor—at the edge of a rose-figured sofa in the posh living room of MaryBeth Gilland’s apartment.

Pages flipped. He didn’t have much interest in the periodicals’ contents: beauty tips and tell-all stories of celebrities.

Forty minutes earlier, MaryBeth had disappeared into her bedroom assuring him she would “be right back.”

Eventually, Gray heard the faint sound of the shower and afterward a hair dryer. There had been no sounds at all for the past several minutes. Gray glanced at the bedroom door occasionally, as he continued flipping pages on yet another glamour magazine. Scowling, still studying the door, he tossed the fanzine onto the glass sofa table in front of him and turned his frown to the mute, cordless telephone he had placed on the table to have it within easy reach.

He wanted Butz to call. He wanted to hear that police had arrested Sprat, needed assurance that there’d be no more life-threatening surprises on the person of MaryBeth Gilland. Eventually he slouched, rocked his head back against the pillowed cushions, clasped his hands over his belt buckle, and frowned at the ceiling.

He sat like that in the silence, flexing jaw muscles and biceps and thinking. Her first outing and they had come up against your basic, alpha-male-type murderer. He hadn’t seen a case like this one in years. Why did it have to be both unusual and threatening? It had looked so simple—open and shut. This Sprat character was turning out to be damned imaginative, if he was responsible for uxoricide—a new word learned since Gray had begun investigations, and a new twist in an age-old question: how does a man rid himself of a rich wife and walk away free, with no one noticing? It was exhilarating, when you thought about it. Getting away with murder, winding up rich, and going scot-free.

He started when the telephone rang, causing him to leap to his feet and bolt from a comfortable slouch to rigidly upright. He answered before the first ring stopped echoing.

“Hello… Yeah, Butz, I’ve been waiting. Have you got him?” He listened a moment. “What?”

The bedroom door opened and MaryBeth stepped into the room. She wore low-rider slacks and an oversized sweater that draped provocatively covering her upper body only to stop abruptly, leaving her waist and the hollow hinting at her belly button exposed.

Wheeler raised his eyebrows but continued listening to Butz. After a pause, he shook his head in disbelief.

“I thought it was peculiar too. I figured he was following her and got a little heavy-handed when he saw the open elevator, an opportunity too good to pass up. Where do we go from here?” Another pause. “I’ll ask her and get back to you. No, we’ll take it easy. I sure never figured on this.”

Wheeler set the cordless phone in its stand and paced three steps, feeling bewildered.

“The police picked Sprat up before noon on an old traffic warrant,” he said quietly, standing still and gazing at MaryBeth.

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