Murder at Moot Point Read Free

trying to avoid the accusation in the cat’s stare. She’d read that cats won’t look you directly in the eye for long but this cat hadn’t heard about that.
    Sheriff Bennett sat on a coffee table facing her. Jack Monroe and Frank Glick perched on the edge of a leather couch peering around him to watch Charlie. Frank wore a safari outfit—shirt and shorts and hiking boots. His stick legs had no shape except bulges for knees. A neighbor stood behind the couch fussing around him. Another offered coffee and some kind of sliced nutty/fruity bread on a tray, setting her lips in grim disapproval when nobody took any.
    This was one of those double trailer homes you’d never want to move, set on a concrete foundation with a patio and porch. It sat next to Jack’s store.
    â€œWes,” Jack touched the sheriff’s shoulder, “could Georgette have ridden by Charlie’s car when it was parked and slid underneath it?”
    â€œHard to see how that would crimp up her bike that way and how it would kill her.” The sheriff shifted slightly and Charlie waited for the coffee table’s legs to buckle. “We’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report.”
    One of the women bent over to whisper in Frank’s ear and he brushed her away like a mosquito. “Don’t want no doctor, no hot milk, no sedatives. I do want to hear what it is this young lady has to say for herself. Now you old bats just get on home and leave me alone. My wife that was killed.”
    The women retreated toward the door, but didn’t leave. The one with the refreshment tray asked, “Shouldn’t you call the family, Frank?”
    He sat up and rubbed at his beard. Without the slicker he was skeletal. “Hadn’t thought of that yet. Would you do that for me, Martha?”
    â€œMary.”
    â€œMary. Oh, and tell them to make reservations someplace else cause I can’t house ’em all here, that’s for sure.”
    Sheriff Wes of Moot County drove Charlie to her cabin at the Hide-a-bye instead of to the jail because her car was impounded for the investigation and because it seemed clear that she hadn’t run over Georgette Glick on purpose, nor had she fled the scene of the accident. They stopped at the main lodge on the road to pick up the key and allow the sleepy girl at the desk to imprint Charlie’s American Express card, and then parked at one of a series of cottages presumably overlooking the ocean. That’s what the brochure had said, that’s what the sound on the fog sounded like.
    Sheriff Wes followed Charlie into the cottage carrying her suitcase, briefcase, and garment bag. First door to the right opened to the bedroom—old knotty pine furniture and paneling that reminded her of Frank’s knees. To the left was the bathroom. A short hall opened to one room divided into carpeted living room and tiled kitchen areas.
    Two recliner-rockers in the middle of the carpet could swivel between the TV and the stone fireplace built into the inner wall shared with the bedroom. A couch sat against a side wall. A Formica table with plastic chairs graced the kitchen end. The place smelled of moldy carpet and sour drains. Sliding doors and picture windows formed the outside wall.
    â€œThe agency paid all that for this?”
    A chuckle rumbled behind her. “Just wait till the fog lifts and you won’t believe the view. People come clear from foreign countries for this. ”
    Even though they were pulled open, sections of the drapes on the Pacific wall pouched loose from their hooks. Only a blanket of dark showed through from outside. The sheriff lit one of those pressed logs in the grate and they sat in the recliners to watch it burn as if they’d never seen fire.
    He was built like a tank. All square edges. Massive, but solid. Not a soft-looking place on him except where he smiled. “We keep having to go to all these consciousness-raising