Sky high pies 21- Murder on sunset trail by Mary Maxwell

Author:Mary Maxwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-01-29T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Wallace Brady asked me to repeat the story twice after I called to report that Danny Barnett was the father of a boy who would celebrate his fifth birthday late the following week. When I left Hailey’s shop a few minutes after learning the bombshell news about her brother, I’d walked around the block a couple of times before pulling out my phone to share the news with the retired detective.

“Well, if that’s not a sad twist in the road,” Brady said in a mournful voice. “Nobody mentioned that his wife was pregnant when he went missing.”

“Probably because she’s not the mother of Danny’s son,” I said, flashing back to my own shock when Hailey told me the story in her art supply store.

During her long, tidy recitation of the last few years of her brother’s life, Hailey had described his wife as a life-sized Barbie doll wearing a blonde wig. “Belinda’s a really beautiful woman,” she had said. “It’s just too bad they forgot to include a brain or heart in the package.” After sharing the unflattering appraisal of her sister-in-law, she’d also revealed the identity of her nephew’s mother.

“No kidding,” said Wallace Brady when I told him the woman’s identity. “Right here in his old hometown?”

I nodded. “Danny and his wife were separated,” I continued. “They’d been living apart for going on six months when he met Naomi. One thing led to another, and…well, you know the rest.”

He laughed. “I’ve heard comparable stories before, Miss Reed. I’ve known a few men and women in my life who found themselves in something similar.”

“I suppose it’s more common than some folks would imagine,” I said.

“Like a lot of other things,” Brady said with a hoarse chuckle.

“I’m planning to see her as soon as possible,” I said.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Naomi Drummond,” I said. “It’ll be like an unexpected twofer.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, she was already on my list,” I began. “The store where she works sells an eclectic mix of gift items, including some pretty gorgeous leather journals. I was hoping that they might carry the type of diary that Roxanne found at Red Mesa Lodge.”

“What’s the place called?”

I told him the name: Pennebaker Paper & Press. Then I asked if he wanted to join me for the conversation.

“No can do,” Wallace Brady replied with a jolly laugh. “I’m driving my daughter to the airport in Denver. She’s on the way to her first big meeting with a bunch of geeks in Vegas.”

I smiled. “Goofballs?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “Deb works for a company that has something to do with multidimensional database management.”

“I don’t really know what that means,” I said.

Brady snorted. “Makes two of us. I just know that my daughter likes it and the people she works with remind me of the goofballs that I went to school with. You know, the kids who were like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory.”

“Ah, that kind of goofball, huh?”

“Yep. And don’t get me wrong. They’re all really nice people. It’s just that they talk about a bunch of stuff that sounds like Martian to me.

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