Murder is the Pits Read Free Page A

kind of name is that?”
    “He’s staying in the two-story unit on the
far left. His name is Guthrie Fribble.”
    Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Guthrie
Fribble? You’ve got to be kidding.” She turned on her heel. “It’s
barely light, for godsakes! I’m not in the mood for Fribble’s
dribble.” She stomped past me to the master suite and slammed the
door.
    BAM, BAM, BAM. Whether Guthrie heard Penny
Sue’s comment, I don’t know, but he was not giving up. “Leigh, it’s
me, Guthrie. Something’s happened! Something bad,” he shouted.
    Penny Sue must have been listening from her
bedroom. The “something bad” apparently got her attention. She
barreled from her room and opened the front door.
    The three of us must have been an eye full,
because Guthrie went mute.
    “What happened?” Penny Sue demanded.
    Guthrie, barefooted and dressed in baggy
jeans with a very faded Arlo Guthrie tee shirt, backed away.
    I patted the air soothingly. “Sorry, you
woke us up.” Guthrie was an old hippie—about 50, I guessed—who
might have done a few too many drugs in his youth. Still, he was a
neighbor who’d been staying in his aunt and uncle’s place for the
last few months. My intuition said he was gay, though it really
didn’t make any difference. He’d always been nice to me and was a
good guy as far as I could tell. “What happened?”
    “Little Mrs. King’s in the hospital. Someone
tried to break into her condo, and she had a heart attack.”
    My hand went to my mouth. I had no idea who
he was talking about. “Mrs. King?” I asked sheepishly.
    “My next door neighbor.”
    Oh, that lady. She was a quiet, sweet widow
approaching 80, whom I knew as Nana.
    “Someone broke into her house?” Penny Sue
asked.
    “They tried to pry open the window in the
garage and set off the burglar alarm. The alarm must have scared
Nana and caused the heart attack. She had a weak heart, you
know.”
    “I didn’t know about her heart,” I
confessed, feeling like a dirty dog for not taking more interest in
my neighbor.
    Guthrie’s hand went to his heart. “And now
Hurricane Charley …”
    “What about Charley?” Ruthie snapped, eyes
widening.
    I pushed open the screen door, the rusty
spring stretching with a loud twang. “Let’s talk about this over
coffee.”
    Guthrie took the stool at the corner of the
L-shaped bar. Ruthie flicked on the television that was still tuned
to the Weather Channel from the night before. While I scooped
Columbian grounds into Mr. Coffee, Penny Sue made toast.
    “There, see?” Guthrie exclaimed, pointing at
the television and a jumble of colored lines fanning out from
Charley’s location. “Those are computer forecasts of the storm’s
path. Check out Mr. Yellow.”
    Ruthie sank onto the sofa, her expression
grim. “It goes right through Central Florida and could become a
Category 3.”
    Penny Sue slid a basket of toast, knives,
jelly, and stack of napkins on the counter. “A hurricane box is our
first priority.” She glanced at the clock. “The stores are probably
packed already.”
    “Yeah, sure.” I passed Guthrie a mug of
coffee. “How is Nana?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Her alarm woke
me. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it. Luckily, she wore one of
those medical emergency necklaces. Like the ones in the commercial
where the lady falls and can’t get up. Nana had the strength to
push the button, so it couldn’t have been a massive heart attack.
The police and ambulance arrived at about the same time.”
    “The burglars didn’t get in?”
    “No, I guess the alarm scared them away. The
police are dusting for fingerprints now. Ten bucks says it was some
kids looking for quick cash. Dummies. That window had an alarm
sticker on it.”
    Penny Sue washed down two ibuprofens with
her coffee. “Those warnings don’t make much difference. So many
people put up stickers who don’t have alarms, they’re not much of a
deterrent anymore.”
    Guthrie nodded. “She