Nursery Crimes Read Online Free

warm. It was a long while before I fell asleep.

    A BIGAIL Hathaway’s homicide happened too late at night to make that morning’s
Los Angeles Times
, but the morning news shows each aired the story. I watched all three networks and got three very different stories. One referred to the death as a traffic accident. Another said the police had suspects under investigation. The third reported that the police were treating the death as a hit-and-run and were looking for the driver, whom they believed might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Much to my embarrassment, I found myself vaguely disappointed that it appeared to have been a random accident. Over the course of my long, sleepless night I had worked up a head of steam about Bruce LeCrone. He seemed decidedly murderous to me.
    The problem with having experience as a criminal defense lawyer is that you tend to see criminal violence everywhere, in everyone. One of Peter’s and my biggest sources of conflict is that despite the fact that he spends his days thinking up new and exciting ways for people to be killed, preferably with as much blood and pain as possible, he is an eternal optimist who always believes every human being to be basically good at heart. I’ve spent too much time with apparently normal guys (and some women, too) who’ve done heinous things and am always willing to believe someone capable of extreme violence.
    Not surprisingly, we got into an argument when I told Peter that I was suspicious of LeCrone. I had just woken him and was standing in the doorway of my closet, desperatelysearching for something to wear. Ruby was happily ensconced in the living room, glued to
The Lion King.
    “Oh, right, Juliet,” Peter said, obviously irritated. “That’s what most studio heads worth nine bazillion dollars go around doing. Murdering preschool teachers.”
    “He’s not most studio heads! Tell me you didn’t think he was psychotic.”
    “I didn’t. Aggressive, yes. Used to getting his own way? Yes. But psychotic? No. If he’s psychotic then so are two-thirds of the executives in Hollywood.”
    I thought about that for a moment while I rummaged through a pile of trousers, looking for some maternity leggings. Stacy had said the same thing, and it did have a ring of truth to it. Peter was always regaling me with stories of his dealings with various producers. One guy, in particular, was legendary. He had a phone with buttons on it marked “rice cakes”; “diet Coke”; “sushi.” If he punched a button and his assistant didn’t show up immediately with the requisite item, heads rolled. This same producer was famous for having been arrested on a flight from New York to Los Angeles for refusing to give up the in-flight phone and screaming obscenities at the flight attendant who tried to pry it away from him. He was probably single-handedly responsible for the appearance of phones on the backs of airplane seats. Bruce LeCrone was certainly no more horrifying a character than he.
    On the other hand, as far as I knew, neither the flight attendant nor any of the assistants of the ranting and raving producer had ended up dead. It was one of LeCrone’s enemies who had gotten herself mashed against a mailbox by a luxury car.
    However, giving my already stressed-out husbandgrounds for an anxiety attack was not on my list of appropriate activities for the day. I decided to drop it—or at least to let Peter think I had.
    “You’re right. I know you’re right. Listen, you remember I’m supposed to be having lunch with Marla?” Marla Goldfarb was the Federal Public Defender, and my old boss.
    “Was that today?”
    “Yeah. I told you yesterday. Is that a problem? Do you have a meeting this afternoon? Can you watch Ruby?”
    “Sure, no problem. I was going to take her on a comic-book-store crawl, anyway.” Peter’s idea of a good time is hitting every comic-book store in Hollywood in a single afternoon. If he doesn’t get the