The Cold, Cold Shoulder by Anne Schraff

Author:Anne Schraff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
Published: 2014-08-05T17:51:58+00:00

Chapter 7

Cody and Todd left for work early the next morning.

“Old Breck is giving me some real dirty looks,” Cody said. “I think he wishes I’d left poor little Freddy resting in peace under the leaves.”

“Know what, Cody?” Todd said. “I was too scared to sleep, so I jammed a chair under the doorknob!”

“I don’t blame you,” Cody said. “We need to find another place to live.”

“I guess this is what Breck was afraid would happen,” Todd said. “Most everybody at the house is talking about moving out now. People are wondering who could be next.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Cody said. “Maybe Denham killed Freddy. You know that guy gets really nasty when he’s been drinking. Maybe he stumbled into Freddy’s room by mistake. If Freddy thought he was a burglar, he could have attacked him or something.”

“Could be. I just hope the cops hurry up and find out who did it. We’ll all feel better when they take the murderer away,” Todd said uneasily.

The coroner’s report was released that day. It said that Freddy Paine’s death had resulted from a sharp blow to the head. He’d suffered massive bleeding of the brain and died immediately.

Cody checked out other rooms for rent, but they were all too expensive. With so many college students scrambling for housing, it was easy for landlords to keep rents high. Only broken-down old rooming houses—some even worse than Breck’s—charged what Cody could afford.

That Friday night, Cody was back in his room, unable to sleep. He was listening to the weird, creaking noises the old house routinely made. Before Freddy’s murder, those noises had never bothered him, but they did now.

Suddenly Cody heard footsteps coming down the hall. He recognized the unsteady, stumbling gait of a drunken Louis Denham. The guy was obviously coming in from another night of drinking. Cody felt sick. Maybe Denham had also drunkenly stumbled into Freddy’s room that night. Maybe when Freddy confronted him, he’d lashed out like a madman.

Cody took a long, nervous breath. Then, to his horror, he realized that someone was trying to open his door!

It had to be Denham. As a former boxer, the man had a broken nose and a jagged scar on his chin that added to his generally brutish appearance. The thought of that ugly, drunken hulk forcing his way into this room made Cody feel sick to his stomach.

Cody scrambled from his bed and grabbed a heavy metal flashlight. If Denham got in somehow, Cody planned to use the flashlight to defend himself.

Fumbling hands continued their efforts to open the door.

What did he want?

Maybe he was a madman. Freddy might not even have confronted him. Maybe he went into Freddy’s room and killed him for no good reason at all!

Cody rushed to the closet and grabbed his old steel baseball bat. If he swung it at Denham’s head, it would do a lot of damage. Cody stood alongside the door, planning to whack the intruder over the head the minute he came in. Then Cody would race into the hall and dial 911 on his cell phone.

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