Alibis and Amethysts Read Free Page B

Jaye and Frosty
     returning, she’d gone outside to see what was keeping them. “Who is that?” she sputtered
     through her fingers. “Is she dead?”
    Jaye was still hunkered down beside the body. “I don’t know,” she said in response
     to both questions, “but I can’t find a pulse and she feels awfully cold.”
    “We have to call the police—no, the paramedics just in case she’s still alive—oh,
     my God. . . .” Sierra’s voice trailed off, shrill with panic, but she remained as
     frozen as Frosty.
    Jaye had never seen her friend quite so undone before. “Give me a hand and we’ll roll
     her over. Maybe it’ll be easier to check for a pulse if she’s faceup.”
    “Okay, all right,” Sierra said, kneeling down next to her. “Wait—are you sure we should
     be doing this? The police don’t like anyone touching things at a crime scene.”
    “We’re wasting time. What if she’s not dead? You take her hip; I’ve got her shoulder.
     Gently now, on the count of three.”
    “On three,” Sierra murmured reluctantly. As it happened, the woman was so petite,
     and they were so stoked with adrenalin, they nearly rolled her full circle, right
     back onto her face again. If there’d been a slope to the property, she might have
     rolled right on down to the street.
    “Take the flashlight and hold it so I can see what I’m doing,” Jaye said once they’d
     stopped her forward momentum. As soon as the light illuminated the woman’s face, both
     she and Sierra screamed and sprang to their feet.
    “Peggy,” Jaye whispered breathlessly, as if the realization had knocked the wind right
     out of her.
    ***
    Within minutes of their call to 911, the first patrol car swung into Sierra’s driveway,
     lights whirling, sirens blaring. As soon as the officer realized how dark the side
     yard was, he left the gate open and repositioned his car so the headlights provided
     some illumination. Jaye, Sierra and Frosty (now on a leash in anticipation of the
     approaching chaos) had been waiting far from Peggy’s body in deference to the dog,
     who seemed to find her, or perhaps death in general, something to be avoided at all
     costs.
    “Yeah, she’s gone,” the cop told them matter-of-factly after he’d checked Peggy for
     a pulse. He was wearing the official tan uniform with the proper emblems and badges
     and he carried the standard-issue gun on his hip, but he looked like a kid to Jaye,
     barely old enough to drive. Of course, that wasn’t true—it was just one more distressing
     sign that she was in the fourth decade of her life. She immediately felt contrite.
     How could she bemoan the process of aging while Peggy lay there completely out of
     days?
    The officer had stepped away from the body and was cordoning off the area with yellow
     crime scene tape when the paramedics arrived. They came through the gate at a run,
     carrying emergency gear, and dropped to their knees beside Peggy. They checked her
     vital signs with an efficiency born of custom, exchanged a brief glance, then looked
     up at the small assemblage and shook their heads in unison. They packed up their equipment
     with the same quiet efficiency and were gone before Sedona’s two detectives came through
     the gate. Dressed in business suits and ties, they looked appropriately old to Jaye,
     who took them to be in their late thirties or early forties. Jaye had never met either
     of them before, but Sierra greeted them by name. No surprise, she’d been living in
     Sedona for over a year now, and no one made friends more easily than she did. For
     as long as Jaye had known her, she’d been a people magnet. She wasn’t a beautiful
     woman by most standards, but with her ebullient personality she was clearly irresistible.
     Jaye had seen that rosy outlook abandon her the moment she’d realized it was Peggy
     lying there on the ground. Finding a dead body on your property would be more than
     enough to knock the sunshine out of anyone,