GUNNED Read Free

Spiegel shook her head. “But I do it every year. The man couldn’t wait to have a crisis until I got back? He promised he would just forget all this foolishness. The kvetching . All he does is kvetch . It’s enough to drive a person crazy. He’s upsetting our daughter. Causing arguments. You see, I just had to get away before I killed him. My friend, Lorraine, and I have a rule. When we go on our annual retreat, we turn off our phones. Once a year a little peace and quiet. Then I get home and see all these messages on my phone from my brother-in-law, so I knew Sheldon was here. He’s gotta be driving Jerry nuts, too.”
    The woman obviously didn’t know that her husband was dead and I didn’t want to be the one to tell her. I needed to call John. Let the police be the bearer of bad news.
    “Have you spoken to your brother-in-law yet?” I asked.
    Mrs. Spiegel shook her head. “No. Not yet. I got the first flight this morning and rented a car. I figured if Sheldon was anywhere it would be here.”
    “Here? Why would he be here?” I looked over Mrs. Spiegel’s shoulder at the group standing in the hall and shrugged. What the hell was going on?
    “Do you have anything to nosh? Some crackers? A bagel? They give you nothing on planes these days. Still charge the same, more, actually, but nothing to eat. Nothing’s like it used to be.” Mrs. Spiegel smoothed down her skirt then crossed her arms in front of her.
    I started to say something to Millie, our intrepid office manager, but she was already headed down the hall to the kitchen. She came back with some crackers and cheese a minute later and placed a plate on my desk. She smiled at Mrs. Spiegel, and then rejoined the group by the door.
    Mrs. Spiegel kept her eyes on Millie the entire time. “Millie, is it? You look like a nice girl.”
    “Yes, she’s a very nice woman, Mrs. Spiegel,” I said, trying to bring the conversation back on track, though I wasn’t completely clear as to what track that was. “You were going to tell me why you thought Mr. Spiegel might have stopped here.”
    Jackie Spiegel took a bite of cracker and brushed the crumbs off her skirt. “This is good. Some cream cheese would have been nice, a little lox, but it’s good. Just what I needed.”
    “And your husband, Mrs. Spiegel?” I forced a smile on my face and kept my tone even.
    “I suppose it’s all my fault. I had breast cancer. I’m fine,” she said quickly, and waved her hand when I started to offer my sympathies. “My mother had it and my sister. So my daughter decided to get checked like that celebrity did because her mother had cancer and died from it. My daughter wanted to see if she was predisposed to get it. I told her not to. Why live with that over your head? Who needs that kind of stress? If she got sick, we’d deal with it, but no. She wanted to know, so she had the tests. She’s not predisposed. We were thrilled. Then the doctor did some more tests. Always with the tests.”
    “And they found something? They made a mistake with the first test?” I leaned forward on my desk. This was interesting, but I didn’t see how it could possibly end with a bullet to the forehead of Mr. Spiegel. And what the heck was going on with this woman’s fascination with Millie?
    “Yes, they found something all right. I didn’t believe it. I fired that schmegeggy of a doctor. He was making my Andrea crazy. I told her enough, but she went somewhere else. They did all the tests again and they came back with the same result.”
    “And what result was that, Mrs. Spiegel?”
    Sam and Marla had stepped into the office and were now leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the door from where Millie had taken up her position.
    Mrs. Spiegel wiped a tear with a tissue she took from the box on my desk. “That our Andrea wasn’t our daughter. I mean, of course she was our daughter. We brought her home from the hospital and raised her. Everyone says she’s just like me. But