The Last Blue Plate Special by Abigail Padgett

Author:Abigail Padgett [PADGETT, ABIGAIL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446562522
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

15

Shadows

Jeffrey Pond came to the door of his apartment in a blinding Hawaiian shirt and navy blue sweatpants. His bare feet were still pink from a hot shower and he smelled like Dove soap.

“I’m Dr. Blue McCarron and this is Mr. Berrryman,” I began.

“Dude,” Pond said to BB as if they were surf buddies. To me he said, “Hey,” as he gestured for us to enter. I remembered that he was forty-one. Why was he speaking in the one-syllable code used by teenagers?

“Thank you,” I pronounced slowly, hoping to introduce the idea of two-syllable speech. Otherwise, I thought, this interview could take all night.

BB stood by the door as usual, eyeing Pond’s overdeveloped muscles. The biceps pushing against the man’s flowered sleeves as he picked up an upholstered chair and set it down facing the couch were the size of softballs.

“So,” he said amiably, flopping into the chair and grabbing what looked like a huge wad of Silly Putty from the coffee table, “what’s this about?”

I watched as he crushed the Silly Putty in his right hand, making all the muscles in his forearm stand out like an anatomy illustration.

“The police will have explained to you that someone has threatened to kill at least four women who were patients of the Rainer Clinic,” I said. “Two of these women are dead. Can you spell the word, ‘encyclopedia,’ Mr. Pond?”

For a split second I felt shrewd. The author of the Sword letters was a rotten speller. I wished I’d done this with the others. Jeffrey Pond switched the Silly Putty to his left hand and spelled “encyclopedia” correctly. I no longer felt shrewd.

“I think it can also be ‘p-a-e-d’ in the old spellings,” he noted. “Is this a trick?”

“No. Why are you squashing Silly Putty in your hands?”

“Bodybuilding. Got a competition coming up. Builds the forearm.”

I remembered Roxie mentioning that the killer, if male, might have a super-macho hobby. Did bodybuilding qualify? I couldn’t quite see posing, oiled, in a thong as macho. John Wayne wouldn’t have done it, I was certain. Jeffrey Pond’s bright blue eyes were as guileless as a puppy’s, but not unintelligent.

“You want some o.j. or something?” he asked. “I’ve got some mango-guava juice, too.”

“Thank you, but we don’t have much time. Do you have a computer, Mr. Pond?”

“Jeff,” he answered. “You can call me Jeff. And I haven’t killed anybody. Sure, I’ve got a computer. You wanna look around? I don’t care. Come on.”

With that he launched himself out of the desk chair and led us through the small, tidy apartment. Dining area, kitchen, half bath. Then the hall, a full bath done in tan ceramic tile still steamy and littered with body oils, and two bedrooms. The smaller bedroom contained a double bed and matching dresser. The larger one held weight-lifting equipment and a computer on an inexpensive student’s desk.

“Lotta bodybuilding sites on the Web,” he said. “Good place to find out about competitions. And my son downloads games when he’s here on weekends. I’m divorced.

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