A Lovely Kind of Murder by Tessa Kelly

Author:Tessa Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tessa Kelly
Published: 2021-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

We caught up to Justin Hart at the corner of the block and Marlowe made a commotion of barking and jumping at his legs. Justin backed away until he was up against the iron garden fence and stared at us with alarm and outrage.

I held up my free hand to let him know I meant him no harm. “Justin? Justin Hart?”

He nodded, his eyes still popping. “Please keep your hell hound away from me.”

A hell hound? I fought hard to hold down laughter as I pulled on the leash. “Marlowe, sit.”

Marlowe obeyed but kept his ears pricked and his brown eyes fastened on Justin.

“That’s Marlowe,” I said. “He’s a friendly springer spaniel not the Hound of Baskerville. In other words, he’s totally harmless. Well... mostly harmless. He doesn’t like it when people run from him like their pants are on fire, makes him want to chase them. Probably because he thinks running makes them look guilty.”

“Guilty?” Justin’s nostrils flared. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Then why did you run from us?”

He inched sideways, keeping his back pressed against the fence. “Dogs and I don’t get along, they creep me out. Also, I just talked to my roommate and he said a woman with a dog came by the apartment asking about me. Was that you?”

“That’s right.” I extended my hand out to him. “Sandra James, I used to work with Melody at the studio. We were friends, too. I came by to see if you had any pictures of her we could use for the memorial today but your roommate said you haven’t been home.”

“I was at a friend’s house,” he said in a subdued voice. “I don’t know if Melody had told you about what happened between us... did she?”

“She might’ve said something,” I said, watching his face.

He swallowed. “I freaked out, okay? I was scared the cops would want to interrogate me again. They’re already prejudiced against me.”

“You can see how they might have reasons to be. You were once arrested for abusing Melody, weren’t you?”

Deep lines appeared between his eyebrows. “Is that what she told you? Did she?”

I searched his face for a tell, any small tick that might give away the lie. The guy’s hurt looked genuine. Could it be Will’s information was wrong?

“Melody didn’t go into too much detail,” I told him cautiously. “She just said there was a fight and you were arrested.”

He shook his head, looking bitter. “I never hit Melody. We were drinking and got into a fight that time. She ran out of the room but tripped over the coffee table. I tried to help her up, but she got hysterical and called the police on me out of spite. She was sorry about it later, but I got fired from my job when they found out I’d been arrested.”

From the corner of my eye I saw some of the attendees of the memorial crowd outside the garden gate to watch us. I needed to wrap this up before our audience started asking questions.

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