Murder in the Marigolds by Dale Mayer (best young adult book series .txt) 📕

it to see it was Mack’s brother, Nick. She groaned. “Ugh. I don’t want to talk to him. Unless … does he defend the innocent? I might need a lawyer.” She picked up the phone, answered it, and said, “Hey, so are you a criminal lawyer?”

“No,” he answered. “Why?”

“Does that mean you can’t do criminal law?”

He was confused, as he said, “No, of course it doesn’t. I can do it. You’re just better off having somebody else who’s better trained and experienced in it. Why?”

“I think I may need a lawyer,” she said abruptly.

There was sudden silence on the other end of the phone. “Maybe that ties into what I was calling about,” he said, speaking carefully. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

She stared down at the phone. “Well, I didn’t kill her,” she said, enunciating clearly. “And Mack just left, after asking me a ton of questions, as if I were a suspect,” she said. “I didn’t appreciate that, and I don’t appreciate your doubt either. I do understand it from you, at least a little, because we’ve only just met,” she said, “but from Mack? No.”

“Well, I’m sure he was just doing his job and trying to make sure he did it thoroughly because otherwise it would be assigned to somebody else, who would have had to do the same thing,” he said, “and that may not have been anywhere near as pleasant.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“Well, maybe you should have,” he said, “because Mack obviously believes in you and knows that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. But, given the fact that it’s your ex-husband’s girlfriend, who was also your unscrupulous attorney who left you nearly penniless, it’s a whole different story.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I mean, I certainly wanted to kill her at times. Both of them actually. In theory of course. Just venting.”

“We always have people we want to theoretically kill,” he said, with a note of humor. “It then becomes a matter of if you did it or not.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she said almost absentmindedly. “And, of course, my vote for a likely suspect is my ex-husband. I’ll bet he’s the one who killed her.”

“And that’s almost too easy,” he said. “You would think he would know a little more about trying to make it less obvious.”

“Good point, which brings to mind the thought that it could be somebody wanting to set him up and to get him in trouble,” she muttered.

“Which comes right back around to you again.”

She winced at that. “Great, so even when I come up with theories on my own, they turn around and bite me in the butt.”

He chuckled. “You need to trust Mack that he’ll do what he can to make sure the suspicion on you is resolved and thrown elsewhere and that you’re free and clear.”

“I suppose,” she said. “Did you have a specific reason for calling?”

“Well, I had heard about the body,” he said. “The fact that I’m involved in all this in a peripheral way just means that it came up on my radar.”

“You didn’t kill her, did you?” she asked suddenly.

His startled gasp was heard clearly on the other end of the phone, and then he chuckled. “No, I didn’t kill her either.”

“Okay, just checking,” she said cheerfully, “because, if you think about it, she is somebody you really didn’t like either.” Suddenly frowning, she continued. “And, by that same token and following that logic,” she said, “Mack is in that same boat.”

“Well, I don’t suggest you start slinging around the theory that Mack is a suspect either,” he said, choking back a chuckle.

“No, Mack wouldn’t like that, would he?” she said and started to snicker. “But then he would get the chance to know how I feel right now.”

“But he was just doing his job, and that would be you just needlessly causing him trouble,” he said, still sounding cheerful.

“Right, and I can’t do that to Mack.” She sighed. “Okay, fine. So how will we find this guy?”

Again came a moment of silence. Finally he said, “What do you mean? Hang on a minute. What are you talking about?”

“Well, we can’t just have my neck hanging in the noose here,” she said. “That’s a very uncomfortable place to be, you know?”

“I’m sure it is,” he said, “but you need to leave the police alone, so they can solve it.”

At that, she laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? This is what I do,” she said, “or, at least, it’s what I was doing.”

“How much of that was cold cases?”

“Mack told you that, didn’t he?” she accused.

“Okay, hang on a minute,” he said. “Somehow I’m missing the train of thought in this conversation.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a time or two,” she muttered.

“What are you talking about?”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I just need to make some inquiries.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What inquiries? Don’t you go off doing anything rash now. You have no idea what Mack is doing, and what we don’t want to do is cause him any trouble that messes with his ability to find out what actually happened here.”

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I certainly don’t want to do that.”

“Oh, good, because I—”

“But I also don’t plan on sitting back and doing nothing.”

“That is precisely what you should be doing. Anything else will look like you’re trying to muddy the waters and to make it look like you’re not guilty.”

“But I’m not guilty,” she said reasonably, “so why wouldn’t I?”

His voice took on a tone of alarm. “No, no, no, no. Don’t do anything,” he said. “You’ve got to let Mack handle this.”

“Well, Mack was already here, and he hasn’t a clue who did this,” she said.

“And neither do you,” Nick said firmly. “Please stay out of my brother’s way.”

She frowned into the phone. “Right,” she said, “you don’t know him like I do.”

He gasped in frustration. “No?” he said. “Maybe not, but I know him pretty well, and he is