The Forever Summer by Suzanne Macpherson

Author:Suzanne Macpherson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Eight

0

r

Lila wondered if Bonnie was out of her mind. This was her lawyer? Bernice Jensen had on overalls and a V-neck T-shirt. She took off her straw hat and nodded to Lila. She then removed a pair of green striped gardening gloves, which she stuck in her back pocket.

“Is my client under arrest?”

“Now, Bernice, this is just a little friendly chat.

There’s no need for all this formality.”

“Lila Abbott?” Bernice stuck her hand out to Lila. “Did you answer any questions?”

“No. I had a donut.” Lila shook Bernice’s hand.

178

r The Forever Summer r

“I need a moment alone with Miss Abbott.

How about some of your horrible coffee, Bob? I brought you a carton of my raspberry jam. It’s at the front desk. I take my coffee black.”

Raspberry jam. That would explain the red stains on Bernice’s fingertips. Lila caught herself biting her nail and stopped. She looked down at her own peeling pink nail polish and short, chewed on nails. The polish was supposed to keep her from chewing them.

How the heck did she get into this mess?

Well, duh, she went near a genuine trouble-on-wheels summer boy. You’d think she would have learned from experience, and from every other townie girl she knew who ended up with her heart broken and her life a mess—or worse, dead, like Emily Ruth.

She twisted in the uncomfortable chair waiting for Chief Bob to leave the room. Even when you know you didn’t do anything, there was something about sitting in the chief’s office that made you feel guilty. Like going to the principal’s office. Which she’d done plenty of times.

Back in school, Bonnie had been the quiet type—still waters, all that jazz. Lila had always been the rowdy one. Bonnie had been pulling 179

r Suzanne Macpherson r her behind out of the fire for quite a while now.

She owed her one.

Redheads with a tendency to turn beet red for no reason at all should never be involved in anything shady.

“Now, they haven’t actually charged you with anything, and assuming you kept your mouth shut so far, we’re fine. Because let me just clue you in on the ways of small-town cops. Any of that buddy-ol’-pal stuff Bob tries to pull on you is just another way of gathering information. Even a casual answer to a casual question can look quite different on their report. And I happen to know that Bob is trying to salvage his reputation with the county law enforcement boys after doing such a sloppy job on this case.

It was the county coroner that put in for the investigation, you know.”

Wow, Bernice might have on overalls, but she was a fast-talking dame for sure.

“Bonnie filled me in on the basics. Is there anything you want to add? Oh, and if you actually killed her, never tell me.” Bernice took a pen out of her overall bib and started taking notes on a yellow legal pad inside a leather folder.

Thank heavens Bernice was a charge-ahead 180

r The Forever Summer r kind of gal. Probably a good thing about now.

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.