Murder Over Easy by Marshall Cook

Author:Marshall Cook [Cook, Marshall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3229-0
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2003-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

He did it because he loves me, Mo told herself as she eased to a stop at the highway 26 turnoff and waited for a gap in oncoming traffic.

He did it because he’s concerned for my safety, she told herself. He raised his voice (“I am NOT yelling,” he had insisted) because, under all that male bluster, he was a little scared for me.

Maybe he had a right to be.

Now!

She gunned the car across the narrow gap onto the country road. This route let her avoid going all the way in to Fond du Lac and up along the western shore of Lake Winnebago but subjected her to the possibility of getting stuck behind a manure spreader, school bus, or other rolling road block.

Even on her best mornings, Mo Quinn was not a patient driver. This was not one of her best mornings.

She hated leaving the house upset, with Doug still seething, angry words hanging in the air and no time for the calming down, the resurfacing of reason, the apologies and embraces.

“Your own publisher is trying to chase you off a story!” Doug had rolled the newspaper into a tight baton and walked a tight circle around the kitchen. “Mo, this is nuts! And you’re nuts if you think you can continue to play editor for a lunatic like that!”

If only he hadn’t said ‘play.’ If only he had used another word.

“It may seem like play to you, Douglas Stennett, but it’s my career.”

“I don’t care what it is, it’s gotten way out of hand, Mo. Good Lord …”

“Frankly, I think editing a community newspaper is every bit as important as tracking ‘market fluctuations’ every time Alan Greenbacks sneezes.”

He hated it when she threw Alan Greenspan up at him—especially when she called him “Greenbacks” or “Greenbucks” or “Daddy Warspan.”

“Yes, indeed!” he had said softly. “Breaking the big story on Bessie Mae Harper visiting her niece up in Osseo for the weekend is pretty damn significant stuff.”

“It’s important to Bessie Mae Harper!”

“So, for Bessie Mae Harper, you’re going to drive all the way up to Oshkosh to talk to the last poor sap who tried to put up with that lunatic’s ranting?”

If only he hadn’t said “poor sap.” If only he had used another phrase.

She couldn’t even eat the beautiful eggs Benedict he had gotten up early to make for her. How could she eat, with her stomach roiling and her blood pounding? She wondered if he’d been able to eat after she left. He didn’t even like eggs Benedict.

She slowed through Rosendale, a notorious speed trap, and tried to lose herself in a local talk show on the radio.

Morgan Winslow, the “last poor sap” to edit the Mitchell Doings, had landed a job as a general assignment reporter for the Oshkosh Eagle Beacon.

“To tell you the truth,” he told her as they sat in the crowded employees’ cafeteria, “the job paid so lousy, getting canned was almost a relief.”

She had to lean over the little table to hear him over the noise.

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.