The Trouble with Midnight by Sue Ann Jaffarian

Author:Sue Ann Jaffarian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sue Ann Jaffarian, Jess Lourey, Shannon Baker, soft-boiled, murder mystery, female detective
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2014-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

thirteen

As I drove under the cover of night to Lartel’s house, I marveled at how much television had prepared me for life. A Charlie’s Angels fan from the word go, I had seen every episode at least twice, sometimes three times thanks to Nickelodeon reruns. I was a fan of Sabrina, of course. She had the name and the smarts and didn’t have to do all that ridiculous fawning over the men, as her hair was short and her boobs small. Sabrina used the downtime to figure things out and get the real work done. She taught a whole legion of underdeveloped and underpopular girls how to lie, spy, and detect.

And I had been a willing pupil, as evidenced by my about-to-be second break-in in three nights. Tonight I was wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans, dark hair pulled back, flashlight strapped onto a makeshift utility belt next to my spider knife. The spider knife was a purchase I’d made a few years back at Midwest Mountaineering in the Cities before a solo road trip to Colorado. I figured a woman needed protection, and it felt cool to whip open the three-inch blade with a flick of my thumb.

I had spent the first night of the road trip alone in my tent tossing the opened knife from one hand to the other just like bad guys in old cops-and-robbers movies, trying to look menacing. Apparently I was doing one thing too many because I fumbled the knife early on. It nicked the edge of my shin and started a solid bleeding bout. Since that time, I just relied on the knowledge that my secret inner superhero would know exactly how to use the knife should the need arise.

Lartel’s house was about ten miles north of Battle Lake off of County Road 78, sandwiched somewhere between Ottertail and Blanche lakes. The night was beautiful and clear, the air crisp with the sweet threat of a winter past. The stars seemed low and bright, like they always do in the spring, and the lazy off-season traffic allowed me to take a couple wrong turns before I happened upon the black mailbox with the name McManus etched onto a plain signboard swinging below.

I killed my lights (Sabrina would be proud) and rolled in stealthily. I felt the excited vibration brought on by elective fear. Lartel’s drive­way was relatively short for a country home in this area—no more than three-quarters of a mile—hedged by oak trees on each side. I saw the glowing yard light as I neared the house, but I couldn’t make out the house itself until I turned the last bend in the driveway.

The outside of the residence was pretty much as I had envisioned it, except for the alabaster Doberman pinscher statues on each side of his front door. I figured he would be more of a frolicking-lawn-trolls kind of guy, but this wasn’t the first time he’d surprised me this week. The house itself was painted a pristine white, with green trim on the windows and matching green shingles—a standard country home.

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