A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) by Anna Burke

Author:Anna Burke [Burke, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

The next day, Jessica replayed events from the night before as she made the ninety-minute drive from Riverside to Rancho Mirage. Dinner had been delicious. She could not have imagined a more perfect Fourth of July barbeque: burgers and all the fixings; corn-on-the-cob; potato salad; red, white and blue tortilla chips; and, as Frank had promised, Aunt Evelyn’s 7-layer dip. The kids, having spent two hours churning around in the pool, were more than ready to tank up again. They must have come close to putting away the 10,000 calories Frank estimated they consumed daily.

Double desserts had helped. Aunt Evelyn had made a brownie flag cake. Brownies topped with white cream cheese frosting and decorated with blueberries as the dark background, with bits of white frosting showing as the stars, and red raspberry stripes. It was delicious, but so were the cupcakes. They went over well with the kids, who thanked her, more than once, for bringing the sweet treats to the feast. Evie oohed and aahed over how cute they were, while Frankie just wolfed them down. Jessica would have been convinced they were going to be sick eating so much, except that she had seen Brien do the same thing, while washing it all down with several beers.

After dinner, Jessica would have been content to sit in the back yard for the rest of the evening. The kids were wired, mostly from sugar but also from anticipation of the fireworks. Frank had bought tickets for all of them to watch the fireworks from a cemetery in Riverside. “Best seats in the house,” according to the locals. She would drive her own car to the fireworks display so she could return to the Mission Inn, directly.

The more pressing issue after dinner was the talk she and Frank had agreed to have with Don Fontana. It was a relief to have the matter out in the open, ending the debate about whether or not to tell Frank’s dad they were taking a new look at Kelly’s accident. It felt so much better, too, not to delude Uncle Don about why she and Frank were suddenly seeing each other.

Her initial reaction had not been relief, however. Shock had shot through her, causing the platter of burgers and buns she was holding to wobble precariously. Fortunately, Frank had just walked up behind her and was able to whisk the tray out of her hands before disaster could strike.

“How did you know, Uncle Don?”

“I may not be a detective, like Frank, but I am a cop and a good one. I saw Art Greenwald come in and then leave the building in Palm Springs, all hush-hush, no shootin’ the-breeze with me or anybody else. That’s not like him at all. Not everybody knows enough to hide his business from me, so I asked around. That’s when I heard they’ve got some loser in the RPDC who says he knows something about a cold case, and Art wants the old file with all the case notes.

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