March Street Malice (March Street Cozy Mysteries Book 3) by Estelle Richards

Author:Estelle Richards [Richards, Estelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I choked back a laugh at her question, but that turned into a coughing fit. Whitney ran into the waiting room and brought me a cup of water. I sipped at the water, letting its coolness soothe my raw throat.

“Sorry,” I finally said, putting down the empty cup, “It’s just that I was hoping to ask you some questions about Coach Merrick, so your question caught me by surprise.” I gave one more cough.

She tensed. “Would you like more water?” Not waiting for a response, she went and refilled the cup.

She sat back down and folded her hands on the desktop. A professional smile took hold of her face. “Why would you ask me about Coach Merrick?”

“I think you know something you’re not telling the police.”

Her glance strayed to the little desktop Zen garden and a finger twitched, as though she wanted to pick up the tiny wooden rake and make trails in the sand.

“What made you call in Bob Barnes?” I said. “Is that the normal procedure, or did you suspect something was going on?”

Her face relaxed. “I did suspect something. Actually, I thought it was strange when Lynne Merrick came in without Coach and asked to raise their insurance policies.”

“She came in without him?” I thought about Melody’s speculation that Lynne had wanted her husband dead for either his cheating ways or his insurance policy.

“That’s right. I thought it was strange. Before that, they’d always come in together, or he’d come in alone. But that’s not all.”

I leaned forward. She smiled and picked up the tiny rake. She made slow swirls in the tray of fine white sand, round and round the deep orange candle in the center.

“She increased the policy on his life way beyond the coverage on her own,” Whitney said in a low, insinuating voice.

“Really?” I sat back and considered that. “I wonder what was going on. Did she say?”

“She didn’t say, but you’ve probably heard the same rumors I have. Small town and all.”

I nodded. “I’d heard he was having an affair, but nobody seems to know who with. Do you know?”

She smiled and drew some more swirls in the sand. “It’s hard to say. Does your ex have any ideas on that front?”

I shrugged. “He hasn’t mentioned any. What about other parts of Coach’s life? Was he ever depressed?”

“Maybe after that losing game at the championships,” Whitney said with a little laugh. “Why?”

“Or maybe happy after losing the game? I heard a rumor that Jake Boyd might have dropped that pass on purpose.”

“Fix the championship game?” Whitney looked at me like I was nuts. “No way. Coach was torn up after that game. He knew Jake’s shoulder wasn’t a hundred percent yet. He blamed himself for keeping him in on that play when he could have benched him and put in a backup.”

I shrugged. “I hear Jake’s been living high on the hog since then. You really don’t think it could’ve been cheating?”

“Not a chance. And if he has a bigger allowance,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.