Summerkill Read Online Free Page B

doesn’t break me up that he’s dead, but he wasn’t enough of a pain in the ass to remotely consider murdering.”
    The crack in his bland expression might have been either smile or grimace; it closed too fast to tell. “We’ll need to find
     out who thought otherwise, then. Would you mind sticking around here for a while?”
    “How long is ‘a while’? I work, you know.”
    “Can you take today off?”
    I opted not to find out if I had a choice. “Okay. But I need to decide what arrangements to make about my nephews. When they’re
     at Sue’s they often pop over here to get something or other. I want them exposed to this thing as little as possible. Are
     we clear on that?”
    “I’ll do what I can. The rec program lets out when, one-thirty?” He glanced at his watch. “That gives us over four hours.
     The body should be gone well before that.”
    “How about your rope construction?”
    “Sorry—that’ll have to stay till we get clearance from the crime lab. Figure a couple days, minimum.”
    “It should be almost as effective as a sign.”
    He grinned. “There’s an upside. Since there’s no way to secure the crime scene, I’ll need to keep a round-the-clock guard
     out there. Gives you a free built-in shield from curiosity seekers and the media.”
    “That’s something, I suppose,” I said doubtfully. “Any idea when you might be finished with me?”
    “Hard to say, at this point. Tell you what: I’ll get back to you by noon at the latest, and we’ll take it from there.”

CHAPTER 3
    S hortly after Sheriff Dye let himself out, he and Joe took off in one of the department cars. I soon picked out who’d been
     left in charge on-scene—a middle-aged guy with receding blond hair and a reddish face. Not much of a mover, but he looked
     emphatic when he talked.
    There was still a small crowd around the body. Several men seemed to have a project involving the woods on the eastern side
     of the property, toward the Berkmeiers’; two others were continuing to check out my Bronco. A few weren’t doing much of anything.
     There’d been an addition— two men and one woman clustered around a tripod-mounted video camera with a large Channel 5 on it.
     They were well away from the body and probably couldn’t get a clear shot of it. I doubted this positioning had been their
     choice.
    Locking the kitchen door, I took the portable phone from its cradle and wandered back through the dining area to the living
     room, concentrating on what I needed to do. The normal afternoon arrangement was for the bus to let the boys off at the Donnellys’
     corner and I’d pick them up whenever, on my way home. Sue didn’t find variable retrieval hours a problem. With what was likely
     to be an ongoing commotion, would that still play? I should sound her out.
    How would I respond if my down-the-road neighbor called to inform me there was a body in her front yard? With more questions
     than Sue ventured, that’s for sure. She has such a strong reluctance to intrude it’s hard to get to know her. She did ask
     if I knew whose body it was. When I told her, there was a little gasp, then “Oh, dear! He and Denny are like fourth cousins.
     Not that they’re close or anything. I mean, we never even heard of Ryan till he moved here from Watertown.” And after a pause,
     “It’s like, unreal. Of course the boys can stay here as long as you want. Or are you going to pick them up at the park?”
    It seemed best not to speculate how difficult that mission might be to execute. “I’ll see how things look closer to time,”
     I hedged. “If you don’t hear from me, can you make sure they don’t wander over here?”
    “No problem.” Nor would there be. Sue’s not a yeller, but she keeps her two girls and a boy in line. Alex and Galen fell right
     in with her system. It was slowly sinking in that kids are apt to do that, when the system’s perceived as user-friendly.
    I stared at the phone in my hand. Was I being