Sentenced to Death Read Online Free Page B

get a quiet evening, after all.”
    Tricia recognized the women standing in front of her shop and barely said good-bye to Russ before jaywalking across the street. Before she even made it to her doorstep, Frannie Mae Armstrong lunged forward and burst into tears. “She’s dead. Oh, Tricia, Deborah’s dead!”
    Tricia found herself patting Frannie’s bony back, as the other women clustered around her. Nikki Brimfield, owner of the Patisserie, and Julia Overline hurried close, and Tricia found herself in the middle of a group hug, with much snuffling and wiping of eyes with damp tissues. The three women were all members of Haven’t Got a Clue’s Tuesday Night Book Club, as Deborah had been—not that she managed to make it to many meetings. But the women—and Mr. Everett—had shared a lot in the past two years. It was only natural they’d come together in their grief as well.
    After what seemed like a full minute, Tricia managed to extricate herself from the warm, weepy mass of women and jangled her keys. “Come on inside and we’ll commiserate.”
    Frannie tried to pull herself together, and the women waited for Tricia to open the door, turn on the lights, and usher them inside.
    “Coffee, anyone?” she called.
    Nikki raised a hand. “I’ll make it.” She’d done it before on nights when either Mr. Everett or Ginny had been unable to attend the club meetings, and Tricia let her. Tricia led the other two women to the reader’s nook. Miss Marple had been sleeping on a pile of magazines. She raised herself, stretched, and began to purr as Frannie and Julia took their seats.
    “I just can’t believe it,” Frannie said, and another tear seeped from her eye. Tricia was determined not to start crying, but just in case, she figured she’d better retrieve the box of tissues she kept under the cash desk.
    “Now, now,” Julia said, trying to comfort Frannie. “Deborah wouldn’t want you tearing yourself up like this.”
    “I spoke with her only yesterday,” Frannie said. When she was upset, her Texas twang grew more pronounced. “It was about the Founders’ Day ceremony. I apologized because I couldn’t be there. Now I’m so glad I wasn’t. I don’t think I could live with the memory.”
    Tricia winced. She was going to have to learn to live with that particular memory, and the thought of hashing it out again and again held no appeal, and she said so.
    “Oh, Tricia, I had no idea,” Frannie apologized, and Tricia took the third of the chairs, flopping into it. Immediately, Miss Marple crept across the table and arrived on her lap, giving her chin a friendly head butt, and revving her purrs into overdrive. Tricia petted the cat, wishing she could just go upstairs to her apartment, pour herself a glass of wine, and stop thinking about the day’s events.
    “I was in the Happy Domestic just this morning,” Julia admitted. “I bought the cutest little decoupage waste basket, and a book on organizing the home.” She sighed. “Poor Deborah. She was in such a state.”
    Nikki reappeared from the washroom with a pot full of water for the coffeemaker. “Why was she upset?”
    Julia shrugged. “She was on the phone when I got there. I didn’t hear much of the conversation—although she was whispering really loudly into the phone. And then she slammed down the receiver. She was so flushed, I thought for a moment she might faint, but when I asked if she was okay, she said she just needed a glass of water. She went in the back of the store and stayed there for the longest time. There were a couple of customers that needed to be waited on, and I found myself trying to help them find what they wanted. Finally, I had to call Deborah from the back room to take care of them. I wouldn’t have felt right trying to use her cash register.”
    “What did she say when she finally came back into the store?” Tricia asked.
    Julia shrugged. “Something about having to take care of the baby. But you know, I didn’t