Out Cold by William G. Tapply

Author:William G. Tapply [Tapply, William G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780312337469
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2006-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

That evening Evie and I were sitting at our kitchen table eating home-delivery thin-crust pizza—Vidalia onion, sundried tomatoes, and goat cheese for Evie, sausage, pepperoni, and eggplant for me, between us covering all of the important food groups except chocolate. I was telling her about my adventures in Chinatown and how I found the restaurant that Misty had called me from on Tuesday.

“Sam Spade,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly.”

“So what did you learn?”

I shook my head. “Hardly anything.”

Right then the phone rang. Evie started to get out of her chair.

“Leave it,” I said. “We’re eating. Probably somebody trying to foist another credit card on us. They always call at dinnertime.”

It rang again.

Evie put down her pizza slice and looked at me. “What if it’s important?”

“They’ll leave a message. We can call them back.”

“I’m going to get it.”

“I know,” I said.

She got up, went over to the counter, picked up the cordless phone, and said, “Hello?”

She looked up at the ceiling as she listened. Then she glanced at me, gave her head a quick shake, said, “Yes, of course,” and wandered into the living room with the phone pressed against her ear.

I could hear the occasional murmur of Evie’s voice from the other room, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying. She seemed to be doing more listening than speaking. I inferred that she was not talking to a credit-card salesman.

She was gone for the length of time it took me to drink half a glass of beer, eat two slices of pizza, and feed a crust to Henry. When she came back and took her seat at the table, she looked at me and said, “That was Shirley Arsenault.”

“Who?”

“Dana Wetherbee’s grandmother. Verna’s mother. I called them last night, remember?”

“Sure I remember,” I said. “I just didn’t remember her name. I thought you said she didn’t want to talk to you.”

“She didn’t. That was yesterday. This afternoon a Rhode Island State Police officer dropped by their house.”

“Oh, jeez.”

Evie nodded. “Your Lieutenant Mendoza faxed him a copy of that morgue photo. He showed it to Shirley. She confirmed that it was Dana. Now she wants to talk to me.”

“Why?”

Evie shrugged. “She’s pretty upset.”

“Of course she’s upset,” I said. “That’s her dead granddaughter. She’s already buried her daughter. That’s way too much. What I meant was, why you?”

“I suppose it’s because I knew Dana, and because I called her. She needs to talk to somebody.”

“Grief counseling,” I said.

Evie shrugged. “Call it whatever you want. I told her I’d be there tomorrow afternoon around four.” She arched her eyebrows at me.

“Where is there?”

“Edson, Rhode Island.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

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