Late for Love (The Way Over The Hill Gang) Cozy Mystery by M.K. Scott ➱ Promotional Tour with Giveaway
Late for Love ex. 1
A throat clearing drew
their notice to Lance. Even though the detective was a few years younger than
Marcy’s fifty, most people would never guess it with his thinning hair and pot
belly. Still, his grin retained a touch of boyishness. “Leave it to you to cut
to the chase.”
His eyes landed on
Herman, and he then went on to make eye contact with all the sleuths. “I think
you might be interested in what Marcy has to say.”
This sounded promising.
“I’m listening,” Jake said, not making the mistake to answer for the others.
He’d learned on previous occasions the error of assuming too much.
“Me, too!” Herman echoed.
Lola and Eunice also
agreed, while Gus held a hand up to his ear and asked, “What?” with an impish
look.
Eunice elbowed him and didn’t
bother repeating the question. It was always hard to tell if he hadn’t heard or
was just jerking their chains.
Instead of replying,
Marcy unzipped her backpack with a metallic zing, filling the silence that
stretched between them. She removed some manila folders with typewritten labels
and numbers. Jake’s shoulders went back, and his chin went up as he recognized
the cold case files. His day just got better. It made him feel like he should
salute and report for a mission.
The files made a shushing
sound as Marcy shuffled them casually as a person would a deck of cards. “You’d
be surprised at the dozens of cold cases we have. At first, I thought Lance was
bringing me files to solve because he felt sorry for me.”
“Nope.” Lance grimaced.
“The budget is limited, and there are no new hires in sight. Besides, anyone
who gets hired will start out on active cases. There’s no manpower.” He
cleared his throat when Marcy arched her eyebrows at the last word. “I mean people
power to deal with the cold cases. We do what we can, but usually move from
one active case to the next.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
Marcy spread out the folders and used them as a fan. “Sure, I missed you guys,
but I could use a little help, too. Anyone interested?”
There was a chorus of yeses with Herman raising his hand as if still in the classroom.
Eunice, even though she was the shortest,
worked her way in front of Marcy and plucked a folder at random. “I’ll take
this one.”
Even though they were
used to the woman’s bossy ways, no one took it lying down.
Lola snatched the plump
folder from Eunice and opened it. She blinked a couple of times to bring it
into focus without any luck, and then retrieved her readers that hung on a
chain around her neck. “Let’s see what we have here before you go volunteering
us for a case that is older than we are.”
“What?” Half the time, Jake
felt like he came in in the middle of a movie when talking to Gus.
“You know.” Gus bobbed his
head. “You wanted to know how we could get into Lyre’s sister’s house. She has
the parrot. We could pose as inspectors.”
“That’s…” The word ridiculous stuck in his mouth as he
considered his current sum of possibilities. He had zero ways of getting his
foot in the door. “Doable. Maybe they register parrots? We need a type of
organization. Perhaps we can drop off some expensive parrot seed or something.”
Gus snorted. “Why does every
idea involve spending money?”
He had a point. Every cold
case they had solved did involve some money even if was just for gas. “It is
what it is. Remember that Jim Rockford, television private eye, had a daily
rate plus expenses.”
“Yeah,” Gus agreed. “All we
have are expenses and no one footing our bill.”
Gus placed his hand on the page. “I got it. We could ask her if there was anyone who wanted to kill her sister.”
The wide grin announced his friend thought this was an
obvious question. To some it might be, but not to the parrot party club owners
who knew nothing about Lyre’s disappearance. Jake shook his head before
replying. “We don’t want direct questions that might make her suspicious. We
might try some parrot talk and allow Lorelei to tell us stuff without realizing
it.”
“Parrot talk? Are you the bird whisperer now?” Gus
inquired with a dismissive sniff.
“No. I do
watch television, especially on Saturday mornings when that vet show is on.
Parrots tend to pick out their feathers when they are distressed. Sometimes,
they’re aggressive. Other times, they won’t eat or talk as much and perform
repetitive behavior. Lorelei will immediately tell us she’s not Lyre and her
sister isn’t there, possibly hoping that’ll get rid of us. It’s important to
listen to how she says it.”
“Got it.” Gus held up a thumb to indicate
comprehension. “If she breaks into tears, then maybe she actually cared for her
sis.”
“Possibly.” Jake tapped his pen on his friend’s hand
to get him to move it, which he did. “I’m more interested in her explanation
about her sister. Will she say her sister is dead? She might say her sister is
missing. Could be she might say her sister isn’t there, indicating nothing.”
“Don’t forget she could just slam the door in our faces
or possibly not open it at all.”
“There is that. I can only work with what I know
currently. If we’re able to see the bird, I can make a visual inspection asking
if the bird was pulling out its feathers when she got it. I’m not sure how long
the bird was alone, but I’m sure it was distressed being locked up without food
or water. Then I could mention that sometimes birds are impacted by the owner’s
emotions. I might ask if Lyre was afraid of something.”
“I thought the sisters weren’t close,” Gus pointed
out.
“Could be,” Jake conceded even though it galled him to
do so. It sort of ruined his plan about questioning the sister. “People say
stuff like that all the time, especially when they don’t want to talk to the
police. Not being close could mean a lot of stuff, too. Maybe they didn’t do
lunch or share clothes, but they did have a general idea of what was happening
in each other’s lives. Lorelei could be good for supplying a friend’s name or a
boyfriend. They might know more.”
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