Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11)

Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) Read Free Page B

Book: Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) Read Free
Author: Livia J. Washburn
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lesser degree, there’s a feelin’ like you’ve gone to war together.”
    “You’re both saying I should investigate Roxanne Jackson’s murder,” Phyllis said. “But what if I do, and I come to the conclusion that Danny really is guilty? That’s going to be awfully hard for Mike to accept.”
    “At least he’ll know for sure,” Sam said. “That’s got to be a good thing in the long run. It’d be hard to spend the rest of your life havin’ doubts about something like that. It might gnaw at him to think he hadn’t done everything he could to help an old friend.”
    Phyllis nodded and said, “That’s true.” She sighed. “It doesn’t appear that I have much choice. You know, enough time has gone by since that trouble last Christmas that I thought I’d never have to deal with any murders again.”
    “And now you’re right back at it.” Sam grinned. “You know the old sayin’ about how the more things change—”
    “The more Phyllis Newsom is up to her neck in murder,” Carolyn said.

Chapter 3

     
    When Phyllis was growing up, her parents always had a set of encyclopedias in the house, which she knew made her luckier than some children. Whenever she needed to look something up for her school work, she hadn’t had to go to the library or wait until she was back in the classroom, which had its own encyclopedias. She could do her research right at home.
    She’d also been the sort of kid who would sit and read an encyclopedia for fun, which led more than once to her being called a weirdo and a bookworm, but she didn’t really care about that. Learning mattered more.
    She wondered if people these days still bought encyclopedias. She had a set, but they were close to twenty years old and she hadn’t given any thought to replacing them.
    Probably she could find a newer set cheap somewhere on the Internet, she mused as she sat down at the computer in the living room that evening.
    But encyclopedias wouldn’t tell her anything about Roxanne Jackson’s murder. For that she had to rely on what Sam called “Google-fu”.
    Since Roxanne had been a beautician and her husband ran a paint and body shop, there hadn’t been a lot of media coverage about her murder. As a firm believer in the idea that all human lives were important, Phyllis didn’t think that was fair, but she was also pragmatic enough to know it was true. The case had received a little interest because Roxanne had been killed in an upscale salon on the west side of Fort Worth patronized by a number of old-money clients who lived in the area, but the media would have paid a lot more attention if it had been one of those wealthy matrons who’d wound up dead, not the young woman who did their hair.
    Danny and Roxanne had lived in the country, west of the loop that ran around Fort Worth. They had bought an old farmhouse set back about a quarter of a mile from the county road and remodeled it themselves. Danny was handy about things like that, and Roxanne had pitched in willingly to help.
    On the night of Roxanne’s murder, Danny had worked late at his shop to finish up a job, but he’d been there alone, his partner having left earlier. There were no witnesses to prove when he’d left the shop. Knowing that Roxanne was also working late, he had stopped and gotten take-out food for them, then decided to drive by the salon and see if she was still there. He hadn’t really thought she would be, but seeing her car still in the parking lot, he had stopped and gone in to see if she was all right.
    Unfortunately, Roxanne had been far from all right.
    The police had found the paper sack of cold burgers and fries sitting on the floor just inside the salon’s unlocked door. Later, during questioning, Danny had said that he dropped them there in shock when he walked in and found his wife’s bloody, battered corpse lying in front of the hair dryers.
    He had run and knelt beside her and grabbed her to see if she was alive. That was how he had come to

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