Some Like it Lethal by Nancy Martin

Author:Nancy Martin [Martin, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

After a minute, he said, “I better take care of this tonight. You mind if I take you home?”

“No pizza?”

“Sorry.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with your cousin?”

“No,” he said.

Once again I got the message that I was better off not knowing anything that I might have to discuss on a witness stand. But this time the safety of my own flesh and blood was at stake. So I said, “What branch of the family business is Danny in? He isn’t your accountant, is he?”

“He probably has to take his shoes off to count higher than ten. No, he’s not my accountant.” Michael seemed to understand I needed more reassurance. “He might run a few football pools, and sometimes he gets creative with that and there’s trouble.”

“Michael—”

“Don’t ask,” he said. “Not yet. Some things happened long ago, and I was never completely sure how Danny was involved.”

“Football things? Was Jake mixed up in it?”

“Really,” he said. “Don’t ask. Let me handle it.”

Jake Kendall had been a golden boy, a talented athlete with a big personality, a hot temper and a lot of other larger-than-life qualities that Emma reflected back to him. Despite his wild ways on and off the field, he’d been a straight arrow behind the bad boy persona. Or at least the world thought so. I didn’t want to hear now, years after his sudden death, that things weren’t as they had appeared.

Michael said, “Tell me what Emma said about Strawcutter’s death.”

I told him what I knew, which was that in the early morning hours before the hunt, Emma and Rush had encountered Gussie, Tottie, Dougie and even Tim Naftzinger at the stable. Michael must have heard the frustration in my voice.

“Maybe she’ll remember more detail as time passes,” he suggested.

“I hope so. Meanwhile, I have to keep asking questions. I’m worried about her, Michael.”

“I know. She’s tough, but she’s scared she killed him, isn’t she?”

“She’s confused and upset. She feels guilty.”

“I’m glad to see her get a little emotional with you, though. I was seriously thinking of taking her back to the hospital. She was ready to crack, and not in a good way.”

“Watch her carefully, will you?”

Michael reached across and touched my face. “Don’t worry too much.”

An impossible request.

Michael took me home, and he wasn’t happy to see an unfamiliar truck parked in the rear driveway. “Who’s this?”

I went inside to speak with Mr. Ledbetter, the man who had done his best to look after Blackbird Farm during my parents’ occupation. He still possessed a key, and he was standing in the kitchen wearing the same overalls I remembered from my childhood, along with an orange-and-blue parka that advertised the furnace company he used to own.

He rubbed the stubble on his face with an elderly baseball cap and began shaking his head. “This is very bad, young lady. Very, very bad.”

I introduced Michael, and they shook hands solemnly. Mr. Ledbetter continued to wag his head.

“What’s the prognosis?” I asked. “Why do I have a swimming pool starting in my kitchen?

“It’s the roof.

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