Unpaid Dues Read Online Free

married? Did she have any children?"
    " Not that I know of, but really I don't know
anything. I never see those people anymore unless they wander into an
AA meeting. You know that. Why all this interest all of a sudden?"
She was keeping her voice calm, but she could feel the sweat forming
in her palms and armpits.
    " Jane Ferrar was murdered."
    "Oh," she said. Now it all made sense, his
questions, his attitude. "I don't know anything about Jane and
any murders."
    "Murders?"
 
 
    Chapter 3
    "Murders," St. John said again. "You
said murders."
    "I meant murders in the general sense."
God, Munch thought, what an incredibly stupid slip. You'd think I had
a guilty conscience or something. She conjured a quick image of Jane,
but couldn't picture her with anything but wary fear on her face.
Jane always tried so hard to please, and always chose to hang out
with the people who cared least about her. "Do you know who
killed her? Any suspects?"
    She heard the whine of the air gun through the office
door, and wished she were still out there tightening lug nuts.
    "We just got her identified. That's why I came
to you for help."
    She clenched and unclenched her fist, working the
finger that had been broken by one very bad guy the last time she
played cops and robbers. A month had passed since then. The flesh
wound on her arm had required twelve stitches. She was told the scar
would fade with time. The orthopedic surgeon said Munch would most
likely have trouble with her damaged knuckle, that she would almost
certainly lose flexibility When the splint was removed, Munch could
barely crook her finger.
    She had woken up all through that night, bending and
unbending the finger until the pliability was completely restored.
Dr. Yuen had been amazed; she'd even called in the receptionist to
witness the miracle. What the doctor didn't know was that beating
long odds was one of Munch's special talents.
    "I'm sorry," she told St. John. "I
wish I could help you, but I had nothing in common with Jane and her
crowd besides drugs. The last time I heard from Jane was right after
I got sober. She wanted to get together. I asked her what for and she
said we could go shopping." She gave St. John a wry look. "Not
my idea of a good time either. I told her that I couldn't associate
with her—that the only thing we ever did together was get loaded
and that since I wasn't doing that anymore I had no reason to hang
out with her. She got kind of bitchy with me." Munch affected a
lofty tone of voice. "She said, 'I didn't know you were nothing
but a bag chaser.' " Bag chaser—meaning any typical drug
addict who only cared about drugs.
    "I said, 'I don't know how you could have gotten
any other impression.' " Munch laughed at her own punch line.
    St. John smiled.
    Munch liked to think he knew and appreciated how much
those small acts of defiance cost her, how, each time she stood up
for her new way of life and let another piece of the old life fall
away she had to face the lurking monster within. The monster
whispered that she was a chump, a turncoat, a sellout. She didn't
argue. You didn't beat the monster by arguing. The only way out was
through surrender. That's when the miracles happened.
    Most of the time, in day-to-day life, work, caring
for Asia, cleaning, cooking, whatever, memories of the old days
didn't intrude. Especially lately, with the mess her love life was
in, she was properly distracted from the risk of relapse. That would
sound odd to a lot of people—normal people, that is. They might
expect that a recovering addict who was having problems would be the
most shaky when actually the opposite was true. In her experience,
the good times were the most dangerous. That's when people in
recovery might be tempted to think they didn't need a Higher Power,
that they were handling their own destiny that maybe an occasional
pill or drink would be as easily handled.
    The monster was a sneaky bastard.
    As long as she kept up her connections to AA, she
felt