Second Grave on the Left Read Online Free Page A

found no foreign objects in my teeth, I asked, “Did Mimi ever mention a Janelle York?”
    “That’s her,” he said in surprise. “That’s Mimi’s friend who was murdered. How did you know?”
    I didn’t, but his thinking I did made me look good.

Chapter Two
    DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS. NEVER CROSS THE STREAMS.
    —BUMPER STICKER
    “What are you listening to?” I asked, reaching over and turning down the radio as Cookie drove home. “This Little Light of Mine” was just way too happy for the current atmospheric conditions.
    She hit the SCAN button. “I don’t know. It’s supposed to be classic rock.”
    “Oh. So, did you buy this car used?” I asked, thinking back to the dead guy in her trunk and wondering how he got there. I still needed to figure out if Cookie had been a black widow before she met me. She did have black hair. And she’d recently cut it. A disguise, mayhap? Not to mention her early-morning, pre-coffee mean streak that made road rage a practical alternative for a healthier, happier Cookie. The departed rarely just hung out on Earth for no particular reason. Dead Trunk Guy most likely died violently, and if I was ever going to get him to cross, I’d have to figure out how and why.
    “Yeah,” she said absently. “At least we know where to start with Janelle York. Should I call your uncle on this one? And maybe the medical examiner?”
    “Absolutely,” I said supernonchalantly. “So, then, where did you buy it?”
    She looked over at me, her brows knitting. “Buy what?”
    I shrugged and looked out the window. “Your car.”
    “At Domino Ford. Why?”
    I flipped my palms up. “Just wondering. One of those weird things you think about on the way home from investigating a missing persons case.”
    Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh my god! There’s a dead person in my backseat, isn’t there?”
    “Wait, what?” I said in stuttering astonishment. “Not even. Why would you assume such a thing?”
    She fixed a knowing gaze on me a heartbeat before she pulled into a gas station, tires screeching.
    “Cook, we’re five seconds from home.”
    “Tell me the truth,” she insisted after nearly throwing me through the windshield. She had really good brakes. “I mean it, Charley. Dead people follow you everywhere, but I don’t want them in my car. And you suck at lying.”
    “I do not.” I felt oddly appalled by her statement. “I’m an excellent liar. Ask my dentist. He swears I floss regularly.”
    She threw the car into park and glared. Hard. She would do well in a prison setting.
    After transforming a sigh into a Broadway production, I said, “I promise, Cook, there’s not a dead person in your backseat.”
    “Then it’s in the trunk. There’s a body in the trunk, isn’t there?” The panic in her voice was funny. Until she flew out of the car.
    “What?” I said, climbing out after her. “Of course not.”
    She pointed to her white Taurus and stared at me accusingly. “There is a dead body in that trunk,” she said. Really loud. Loud enough for the cop sitting next to us with his window down to hear.
    I rolled my eyes. It was late October. Why the hell was his window down? When he opened his car door and unfolded to his full height, I dropped my head into a palm. Thankfully it was my own. This was so not happening. If I had to call my uncle Bob, an Albuquerque Police detective, in the middle of the night one more time to get me out of one of these ridiculous altercations I tended to have with random cops, he was going to kill me. He told me so himself. With an orange peeler. Not sure why.
    “Is there a problem here, ladies?” the officer asked.
    Cookie scowled at me. “Why don’t you tell him there’s not a dead body in that trunk? Hmmm?”
    “Cook, really?”
    She threw her hands on her hips, waiting for an answer.
    I turned back to Dirty Harry. “Look, Officer O. Vaughn,” I said, glancing at his name badge. “I know what Cookie said sounded bad, but she was