Killer Crab Cakes Read Online Free Page B

make sure he was dead. That was standard procedure, Phyllis knew, but in this case they weren’t going to discover anything that she didn’t already know just by looking at the gray, lifeless face.
    Another officer stood beside the patrol car’s open passenger door, talking into a corded microphone she had taken from inside the vehicle. She was an attractive woman in her thirties with reddish blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. As Phyllis approached, she reached into the car to replace the microphone on its holder, then said, “Mrs. Newsom?”
    Phyllis nodded. “That’s right.”
    “I’m Abby Clifton, assistant chief of police. I hear that you were with Mr. Fletcher when he discovered Mr. McKenna’s body.”
    “I was there, but we didn’t discover it so much as . . . Well, I don’t know what you’d call it.”
    Abby Clifton nodded and said, “Let’s go over here and talk about it.”
    Carolyn and Eve started to follow as Abby led Phyllis toward the pier, away from the crowd. Abby looked back at them and said, “I need to talk to Mrs. Newsom alone, please, ladies.”
    Her tone was polite but at the same time firm enough to indicate that she wouldn’t put up with any argument. Carolyn frowned but didn’t say anything. In the past Carolyn had had troubles of her own with law enforcement, Phyllis recalled, so she was always a little suspicious of police officers.
    Even without being told to stay back, none of the crowd got too close to the body and the EMTs working on it. They just stood by and looked on with the mixture of horror and curiosity that the sight of a dead body always evoked in people who weren’t close to the person who had died. Phyllis knew it was a natural reaction. She had been guilty of it herself.
    She and Abby Clifton stepped out a few feet onto the pier. Abby said, “Just tell me what happened.”
    Phyllis knew why they were doing it this way. They wanted to get her story and Sam’s story separately, to make sure that they matched up. It was ridiculous, of course, to think they would have any reason to lie about what happened, but Phyllis knew that if Mike were here, he would tell her not to worry about it, that the officers were just going by the book.
    It didn’t take long to tell Abby Clifton about it. The young woman listened in silence for the most part, asking only a couple of questions to clarify Phyllis’s connection to the owners of the bed-and-breakfast and why she and her friends were staying there. Abby didn’t take any notes, but Phyllis had a feeling that she wouldn’t forget anything she was told.
    When Phyllis was finished, Abby nodded and said, “Thank you. You said that Mr. Fletcher slapped Mr. McKenna on the shoulder?”
    “Yes, but it wasn’t a hard slap or anything like that. More like a friendly pat.”
    “But it was enough to knock Mr. McKenna into the water.”
    “It wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t already been dead. He was hunched forward, and I’m sure he would have toppled on into the water sooner or later on his own, if we hadn’t come along.”
    “But you don’t know for certain that he was dead at that time,” Abby said. “Maybe he’d had a heart attack, just like you supposed, but was still alive until he was knocked into the water.”
    “Sam didn’t actually knock him into the water.” Phyllis frowned. It sounded almost like this woman was trying to blame Sam for Mr. McKenna’s death, when in reality Sam had done everything he could to help the man. He’d just been too late, that was all.
    “Well, I’m sure the autopsy will give us the answers we need.” Abby smiled again. “You’ll have to come down to the police department and sign a statement.”
    Phyllis nodded. “Of course. I understand. My son is a deputy in our hometown.”
    “Really? Then you know something about police work.”
    “A little,” Phyllis said.
    She wondered if she ought to mention that she had also been involved in four murders and an attempted