Murder Unfolds by Sharon Short

Author:Sharon Short
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

16

“I was at her house last night,” I said, when Cherry, Sally, and Dean finally calmed me down.

I sat in one guest chair, legs curled up to chest, a blanket pulled over me. Sally brought me two of the extra-strength Tylenols, and then sat in the other guest chair. I rinsed down the pills with the rest of my coffee—a weak brew that made me long for a real cup, but I didn’t tell Sally that. She looked really worried about me.

Dean and Cherry sat on the edge of the water bed, holding hands, their expressions a weird mix of make-up-sex glow and frustration that they hadn’t quite entirely finished making up.

“Her house . . . the woman who was just on the news? Murdered?” Sally asked, stating each word carefully. She was worried, I could tell, that the previous night’s “mugging” had gonged my brain pan just a little too hard.

Cherry gasped. “You were at that woman’s house when she was murdered?”

“No, no,” I said, “before that—”

Dean gave me a stern look. “If you witnessed a murder, you have to go to the Port Clinton police with the information.”

“We did talk to the Port Clinton police last night—after Josie was mugged,” Sally said.

“You were mugged?” Dean asked. He gave Cherry a why-didn’t-you-mention-this look. She gave him a who-had-time smile and shrug, and his expression melted back into adoration. That boy, I thought, was hooked for good. And Sally was worried about me?

“She was only half-mugged. We got there just in time to prevent a full-scale mugging—” Sally started.

“And I’ve been wondering . . . how did you know where to find me?” I said.

“Never mind that for now—just—”

“No,” I said firmly, “you first. Then I tell about the woman who was just on the news. Then—stop that!”

Cherry and Dean had been massaging each other’s palms. They had the good graces to look guilty and primly put their hands back in their own laps.

“All right,” said Sally, “we went in town last night first to the Dublin Inn—this bar, no, excuse me, this pub that was trying to be Irish-like . . .”

“Sally said it was too high-falutin’ and fake, although I thought it was kind of cute . . .”

“You thought the guys were cute,” Sally snorted.

“Baby-kins?” Dean said, hurt.

Despite the facts that my whole body ached, that I wished for real coffee, and that a woman I’d interviewed the night before had been murdered not long after I’d left her house—probably right after my “half-mugging”—I almost started to laugh. But I didn’t. Dean truly looked hurt.

“Now, sugar pie, you’d said some mean things about me, and I thought we had broken up . . .”

“Don’t worry,” Sally said to Dean. “I got her out of there and over to the Cut Bait.”

“As in, ‘fish, or . . .’” I allowed myself a small laugh after all, which made me feel better, but I still wished for stronger coffee.

“Yeah,” Sally said. “The Cut Bait is a little place with a strobe-lit dance floor, on the second story of one of the buildings overlooking the square.

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