High Stakes, a Hetty Fox Short: a Hetty Fox Short Story (Hetty Fox Cozy Mysteries Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

back.
    “Nonsense,” I said. I grabbed his bowl of chicken and placed it on the floor. Blackie circled my ankles twice before tearing into the gift.
    Andrew snorted in disgust. “Now, could we please get back to the murder?”
    “You’re just jealous, that’s all.”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    I snickered. “Whatever.”
    “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I think we should turn our attention to the neighbors.”
    My brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “The neighbors? What have they done?” I mixed mayo into the chicken and then fixed myself a sandwich, adding lettuce and tomato on top of the chicken salad. I put the sandwich on a little plate, cut it in half diagonally, and carried it to the breakfast bar. Andrew followed along behind me.
    “Hetty, ask yourself why the body was found there in that front yard. Why wasn’t it hidden in a forest someplace where it might not be discovered for weeks, if ever? Why was it lying there in the front yard of a house, where it was bound to be uncovered by some passing dog or in an unlikely case, by some doting grandmother on a hunt for a gerbil?”
    I chewed and swallowed. “And these questions tell you what?”
    “That we need to expand our investigation.”
    “But Brooks might still be the killer. He hasn’t really been ruled out.” Some small part of me still wanted him to be our man.
    “Right,” Andrew responded, “but don’t you see? If we want to get to the bottom of the murder quickly, our best hope now is that Brooks is innocent.”
    “Ah, you’re saying If he is the killer, we’re sunk, but if he isn’t, we still have a chance at solving this case.”
    “Exactly. And with your grandson’s high opinion of you on the line, I’d like to get crackin’.”
    “Wait a minute, Hugh's opinion of me was over the gerbil.”
    “Don’t you think he’s gonna expect you to solve the murder, too?”
    I took another bite of sandwich and considered this latest rub. “So we don’t think this was a planned murder, do we?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It looks more like a crime of the moment, an intense rage that overruled the killer’s better judgement. And after the shooting, the killer panicked. The only thought was to get rid of the body as quickly as possible.”
    “That’s my thinking, too. And why there? Because the killer might not have been able for some reason to take the body elsewhere.”
    “Why not?” I slipped the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth while Andrew wrestled with my question.
    “Maybe the killer lacked the strength to get the body into a car trunk. Or maybe the car was broken down? Mazor wasn’t a large man, but he wasn’t small either. Maybe the killer didn’t have much choice over how far such a dead weight could be hauled. The police said the corpse had been dragged for a ways.” 
    Andrew cast his gaze on me and smiled in satisfaction. “So that’s why I say the killer must be one of the neighbors.”
    “Maybe I need to go back to Megan’s place and extend out little chat.”
    Andrew nodded.
    And by the time I finished fishing additional information on the neighbors from Megan, I was fairly certain I knew exactly who the killer was. The only question was, why I hadn’t realized it earlier?
    When I explained my plan to Andrew, he had only one objection. “You’ll have to come with me again when I search the house. As I’ve suggested: if Oberton obtains a search warrant based on what you told him you found inside the house, the killer has to believe you could have seen the objects. Otherwise, he’ll tell his lawyer it couldn’t have happened. And that lawyer will stand a good chance of getting whatever evidence Oberton obtained tossed out of court.”
    I understood his argument, and regretfully, I agreed that I had to take part again in Andrew’s search of the suspect’s house.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    Lester Potter opened his front door immediately upon my knock. Now, dressed in khakis and a blue oxford-cloth