Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) Read Free

always get away,” I said, putting my shoes back on.
    “That’s what I’m saying,” he repeated.
    “How about calling the cops and getting Mrs. Howard?” I said.
    Paitch’s wild few strands of hair were draped over his eyes. Ralph Howard had picked one hell of a soft banana to keep him alive.
    “The police?” came a voice from above. I looked up at Anne coming down the stairway. I hadn’t seen her for a few months. She had dropped a few pounds. Her black hair was swept back and she was wearing white, all white like Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice . She looked better than she ever had when she’d been married to me, but there were good reasons. She might not be looking quite so good in a few seconds.
    “Anne,” I said, taking a step toward her. She saw something in my eyes and stopped three steps above me so she could keep from contact, keep from knowing.
    “What happened … Ralph?”
    Her eyes were brown and wet as always, and I knew if I wandered through the house it would be brown and white and clean, everything in place, a world made neat as Anne always wanted, a world far different from the one she had shared with me. I was enough chaos for one lifetime. Ralph had been money and order and reliability, and here I was again to leave coffee grounds on the rug.
    “Dead,” called Paitch, trying to rally his minimal resources. “Out on the beach. Someone beat the crap out of him, Mrs. Howard. I didn’t even know he—”
    “How about calling the cops, Carl,” I said without looking at him.
    Anne’s face was calm and still and white. She let her tongue touch her lower lip, one of the few signs of emotion she was willing to show or couldn’t control.
    “Toby, I …”
    “This guy was standing over him, Mrs. Howard,” Paitch said, waving his gun in my general direction. “And another guy was running away.”
    “Make the call, Carl,” I repeated.
    “You know there was nothing I could do about it,” he rambled on. “I got to take time to eat too, don’t I? A man’s got to eat, doesn’t he?”
    “No he doesn’t, Carl,” I said. “The telephone.”
    “Call the police, Mr. Paitch,” Anne said firmly, her eyes still on me.
    “I’m calling the cops,” Paitch said decisively as if he had just thought of it. “Right now.” And he turned and went through the door of a darkened room behind him. Anne and I didn’t say anything for a second or two, just listened to Paitch bungle into odd pieces of furniture, find the light, and finally pick up the phone.
    “I’m not going to break, Toby,” she said softly, putting her head forward. She had clasped her hands tightly together, and the effort to keep it in sent a shiver through her.
    “I know, Anne,” I said.
    Paitch’s voice wasn’t booming but it was loud and clear from inside the room.
    “Ralph Howard. Right. Yes. I’m sure. You don’t have a face like, that if you’re alive I’m telling you.”
    Anne’s eyes blinked, and I hurried over to close the door where Paitch was making the call. We could still hear his voice, but not the words. Anne had taken the last two steps down and I moved to her, held out my hand, but she unclasped hers and held up a palm to keep me away. I knew what she was saying. A touch from me, maybe from anyone, would break her and she didn’t want to break, at least not yet, maybe not at all.
    “Let’s go in here,” she said, turning to a room off the hallway. I followed her and stood in the doorway as she turned on the lights. The room was brown and white, and clean. No children or oafs treaded here, just civilized people, but it wasn’t a civilized person who had done the job on the corpse on the beach.
    “Would you like something to drink?” she said, looking around, unable to remember for the moment where the drinks were. If she weren’t about to crack, she would remember that the beer I drink isn’t found in a liquor cabinet. “A Pepsi?” she asked, striding toward a cabinet, brown